


시애

by CaptainBrieOnToast



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Cyrano based, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29124372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainBrieOnToast/pseuds/CaptainBrieOnToast
Summary: “My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence.” -Cyrano de Bergerac
Relationships: Lee Jihoon | Woozi/You





	1. Chapter 1

“ _The nagging- stop it. I’ll take care of this. Whatever I do, I’ll take care of it_.”

You ran your hairbrush through the strands of your hair as you sang to the song blaring from your phone. You really couldn’t help the way that you bounced your shoulders to the beat, losing yourself in an instant to each and every sound the song emitted.

“ _I do what I wanna. Can you just let me live a normal life or not? Because I live my life anyway.”_

You set your hairbrush back on the counter and started to bounce your foot nervously. You still had a few minutes before you needed to be out on stage, and you were so antsy… You genuinely didn’t really know how to properly pass the time…

“ _I’m so bad bad-”_

Before you knew it, your hairbrush was back in your hand and you were up to your feet, heels be damned.

“ _I’d rather be selfish! It’s a hundred times better than being hurt pretending to be nice_.”

You felt yourself dancing instantly to the dance that you had grown used to watching Itzy perform, your hairbrush becoming your microphone. You didn’t hold back, knowing that there wasn’t really anyone in the room to find your behavior to be annoying anyways.

“ _I’m just on my way. No, no interference. Maybe I’ll tell you just be nice to yourself_.”

You began to bounce a little, getting too excited for the imminent chorus.

“ _No matter what anyone says, I’m me I just wannabe me- I wannabe me me me- It doesn’t have to be something I’m just perfect when I’m-_ ”

“How you’ve made it in the entertainment industry, I truly don’t know.”

You screamed in surprise, your hairbrush dropping to the ground at the sudden sound, and when you realized that it was just Kara, you felt like the biggest idiot on the planet. You bent over and picked up your brush, giving her a short glare.

“You’re not supposed to be back here,” you mumbled. She shrugged and placed a hand on her hip.

“Don’t worry, I was careful,” she assured. “Besides, I wanted _someone_ to show you off to your first stage!”

You hummed nervously, your fingers messing with the strands of your hair as you turned away from Kara to look in the mirror.

“It’s only a big deal if we make it a big deal,” you mumbled. After only a short second, you turned back to look over at her. “But I’m glad that you came.”

“Are you nervous?” Kara asked. She rolled her eyes at her own question. “ _Of course_ , you’re nervous. I mean really… This debut idea is crazy.”  
You looked away from her again, your eyes turning to look down at the white mask that would complete your outfit for the day. You couldn’t believe that you had actually even gotten this far. Getting signed to a company in itself had been practically unbelievable. What had been even more insane was the fact that they had agreed to your concept, liked your music, _approved_ of your choreography? You genuinely couldn’t believe it.

When you had proposed this idea, _drunk_ on life, one night with no one but your closest friends to back you up you had never imagined that everything would get this far and yet here you were.

“I almost think it will get me _more_ attention,” you murmured shyly. “I just really hope that people get the right message from my music.”

Kara hummed and came up behind you, her hands falling on your shoulders as she looked at you, a _scary_ knowing expression on it.

“You hope they get the right message and that _Ji-_ ”

“Don’t say his name!” You blurted before she could finish. Kara snickered and turned your chair towards her. She slowly raised your mask to your face securing it carefully. She stared at you in silence and then began to fix your hair around the mask.

“Alright, alright, you’re going to do great you know that?”

“I know,” you replied softly. “Thanks for being here for me.”

Kara stepped away from you, and she crossed her arms in thought.

“Alright, there’s nothing else I can do for you. It’s your time to shine.”

“And shine I will,” you agreed. You held out your hand and beamed at her: “ _I don’t wannabe somebody, just wanna be me, be me_.”

“ _I don’t wannabe somebody, just wanna be me, be me,_ ” she joined in with a roll of her eyes.

“ _Errbody errbody errbody teachin’ me (All eyes on me). One word-_ ” You guys both began to rap excitedly together. Kara laughed and before she could say more, you both heard a short knock at the door. You gasped at the sudden sound and jumped back, but Kara was faster than you. You watched as she slid behind a fixture in the room, and you plastered on a smile despite already being hidden under your mask as your manager pulled the door open.

He smiled at you.

“Okay you're on soon, come on,” he called. You nodded and set your phone down on the dressing room table. You didn’t say a word as you left but you _did_ hear Kara whispering: _“Fighting_.” To you as you walked out of the room.

-

“Have you heard about that new idol? What’s her name again?”

“Starts with an S right?”

“Yeah, she has such a soothing voice. And her new song-”

“It’s so beautiful! I can’t believe she’s just now debuted. Under such a small company too, she could’ve managed to be under any company if she really wanted.”

Jihoon glanced up from his phone, his eyes narrowing at the group of guys before finally resenting to the conversation.

“Who are you guys talking about?” He asked. “What incredible new idol?”

“ _Everyone_ is talking about her,” Seungkwan replied, wasting no time in jumping to his feet, and showing Jihoon the phone in his hand. There stood a girl in the center of a stage, microphone in her hands. Seungkwan turned up the volume, leaving Jihoon to be able to hear what she was saying.

 _He called me Poetry, said that’s what I am. He said he owed me, all that I am. Claimed he created me from the dirt in his hands. He called me Poetry, and then he left me as I am_.

Her voice was beautiful, almost angelic. Jihoon found himself transfixed for a moment in his seat as he stared at the beautiful singer.

“Who is she?” He asked softly. Seungkwan smiled at him adoringly.

“Siae.”

 _Siae_.

“And why is she hiding her face?”  
Siae was a brand-new solo artist under Kithewhale entertainment. She was a young beautiful artist about the same age as Jihoon, and she had talent beyond belief. She could sing and dance, and despite everything she had only been training to be an idol for the last year or so.

And the most alluring part about her was the mysteries behind her origins.

“Honestly, I didn’t debut just to share music. I can share music anyway I want to nowadays without getting into the cut-throat kpop industry. I came to this specific world for one reason. Because I want one idol to hear my music, to know my name, and to fall in love with me the same way that I fell in love with them.”

Jihoon stared at the stunning idol as she laughed, a sound that made his heart jump.

“Okay but seriously I also just want to share my music,” she stated. “I’ve loved song-writing since I was young, and I just kind of let the dream die since I never imagined that I had anyone to write music for. But this idol that I fell for gave me hope and a dream, and the realization that I have a voice, and finally I’m ready to use it.”

The mask that the young idol wore was easily explained too.

“I don’t want people to judge me for how I look. I want people to judge me for my music. I want my first win to be because I have talent, not because I have a pretty face. Once I get my first win, and once I meet the idol, I want to notice me, then I’ll take the mask off. Until then, the mask stays.”

“A girl like her only comes around every… Who _knows_ how often,” Seungkwan said with a dreamy sigh. He pushed his phone back into his pocket and smiled. “I wonder who she joined the business for.”

Jihoon considered responding to Seungkwan’s words but he found he couldn’t so instead he settled back on his phone and tried to focus back on his rhythm game.

When he instead ended up looking for more stages of this new idol… Well… He tried his best to convince himself it was just because he wanted to know more about all the idols around him.

-

“Hey there kiddo.”

You felt a hand bury itself in your hair before you could stop it. You tried to bat away the hand but, there was little to no point in doing so as the person who had done so was taller than you, and much more insistent to mess with you then you were to escape their clutches.

Ever since debut your life had felt like a whirlwind of activity. You had assumed that since Kyuhyun had been in charge of your schedule you would feel rather relaxed... After all, you trusted the man with your life. But even though every event you were partaking in had at _length_ been discussed between you and Kyuhyun, it was suddenly beginning to feel like a little too much.

You had many days in which you were able to take a break. In fact, you would have one day off almost every other day... It was just that on those days that you _didn’t_ have a break, you were so packed with events that you could barely breath.

Luckily, today wasn’t one of those days.

“Hey Kyu,” you murmured back. “What’s going on?”

“We were practicing, and I thought I’d check on my favorite trainee.”

You rolled your eyes.

“Your favorite _idol_ ,” you replied back. “I’m a debuted kid these days.”

Kyuhyun swung around your body to smile at you, his hand falling from your hair down to your shoulders. He gave you a small squeeze.

“And you’re taking the world by storm,” he mumbled softly. “But in your last stage-”

“Stumbled over my heels, I should drop an inch,” you agreed.

“And that outfit with the pink skirt-”

“Too short,” you agreed. “I spent the whole time worried I would flash myself.”

“Which is why you need to remember-”

“Always wear safety shorts,” you said in unison with him. You both smiled at one another.

You and Kyuhyun were similar in a lot of ways. You both had a similar drive and a _go-get-them_ kind of attitude. When you had first joined the company, you had been... A fish out of water. You were so completely and totally sure all of the time of what you were doing, and yet at the same time you thought you were crazy for trying to do this at all.

Kyuhyun helped you realize that it didn’t matter whether or not you started off belonging in a world. No one was born belonging in any place. Everyone started off in the same place, no one ever _began_ belonging. You _earned_ that feeling of belonging.

“Kara got accepted into Pledis Entertainment,” you said. Kyuhyun let go of your shoulders in surprise at your words and smiled a gentle smile.

“That’s great! How’s it going over there?” He asked. “Has she run into-”

You interrupted Kyuhyun by kicking the heel of his foot an action at which he just laughed at.

“Okay, _okay_ I’ll keep my mouth shut,” he said. “But now that she is over there, you’re going to have to bring her all of the stuff she left at my apartment.”

You rolled your eyes as he wandered over to the corner of the room. In that corner sat a small box of things that Kara had left lying around in the past. Kyuhyun lifted up the box and lugged it over to you. Before you could say a word, he had shoved the box into your arms. You stumbled, struggling to get a grip on the box as he trudged away.

“Wait I have a few more things-”

Kyuhyun and Kara had a sort of... On and off again relationship to describe it as accurately as possible. While they weren’t dating their friendship was one that was often stuck in rapids rather than drifting in smooth waters.

Kyuhyun was a busy guy who could be very clingy at times, and Kara was obsessed with constantly being on the center of attention. Making the two friends with you- who tended to try to make everyone feel included in a group- wasn't the best combination and the two were always fighting for your attention.

At times it was a tiring endeavor, but it was mostly endearing. Especially when the two got like this.

“She _also_ left her dumb jacket in my studio and tell her if I find one more of her bracelets lying around, I’m going to throw them away.”

It was dumb, this little love language that the two shared with one another, but it was cute either way.

“Alright, alright. I’ll take it all over to her.”

Kyuhyun looked a little surprised by the statement, and he pushed his hands into his pockets, raising an eyebrow.

“You mean... You’re just going to go over to Pledis and give it to her?” He asked. You adjusted the weight of the box and nodded.

“Yeah of course,” you replied. “She might need this stuff.”

Kyuhyun gave you an amused look.

“Uh huh. Well, if you run into anyone-”

You rolled your eyes.

“I’m only going to see Kara and go, I won’t be running into _anyone,_ ” you insisted. “It’s not like I _want_ to go to Pledis. Dumb company anyways.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t even _try_ to get signed there,” Kyuhyun murmured. “You totally could have made it.”

You ignored him and instead hoisted the box of things in your arms up higher.

“It’ll be a quick in and out.”

-

“Oh my god!” Kara squealed, throwing her arms around your body. You laughed, the box dropping to the ground as she did so. “I’m _so_ glad you are here. Practice today has been so hard.”

“Has it? Do I need to talk to a certain CEO?” you asked. You backed away from her and cracked your knuckles. “Who do I have to fight?”

She giggled.

“Would you believe that it’s actually your one and only-”

You threw your hand over Kara’s mouth, your eyes growing wide at where Kara’s words were leading and shot her a _look_.

“ _Don’t,”_ you warned. “I haven’t heard his name spoken to me in such a context since debut and I want to keep it like that.”

Kara just giggled beneath your hand, smiling that mischievous smile at you. You were a little afraid to move your hand, but when the trainees around you two started to give you weird looks you sighed and pulled your hand away.

“ _Anyways_ ,” you said, changing the topic as you wiped your hand over your pants. “What have you been up to?”

“Well, we have free time, so I thought I would do some dancing.”

You could see a twinkle in her eye as she looked at you and you put a finger up in the air.

“ _No_ ,” you murmured.

“Come _on_ ,” she encouraged. “It’s a Seventeen song- and you probably don’t even know the choreography. Just give me some tips!”

You tried to protest but before you could, Kara had grabbed her phone and began to play Seventeen’s Hit.

And the next millisecond you were dancing.

You didn’t mean to let it go on for so long- you truly didn’t. But learning a dance choreography was just _too_ much fun to do. _Especially_ when it was one choreographed by _the_ Kwon Soonyoung. A large smile crossed your lips as you lost yourself in the movements of the dance, the music blaring in your ears as you fell in position beside your friend.

A small group formed around the two of you as you two danced, them cheering you guys on as you hit each and every move with perfect precision.

“ _I didn’t know you knew this dance_ ,” Kara exclaimed in excitement as you guys neared the second verse of the song. You twisted your torso sharply to the side and looked off to the side.

“ _Of course, I know all Seventeen dances._ ”

The rest of the dance you two spent cheerfully quipping back at one another, and once you two hit your final pose, your chest heaving, and a large smile spread over your lips, you had pretty much completely forgotten about the fact that you two had a crowd.

You held the pose for a good few moment, pretending as if you were actually on stage, making a face for the camera, when finally, you allowed yourself to collapse into a ball of exhaustion on the floor.

In fact, you were so happy to be down there that you hardly even managed to collect your own thoughts as commotion dissolved around you. At first you thought that it was just a bunch of girls around you being loud for no reason-

“Well done.”

Your eyebrows furrowed at the sound of a deeper voice then you had heard just a moment before. You had thought when you came in earlier there were only girls in the room, so a male voice was a little off-putting. You sat up, brushing your hair out of your face to look at who was there- worried it might be a manager but when your eyes fell on the person before you suddenly were struck with the thought that maybe a manager would’ve been better to run into.

You felt Kara grab your forearm and together you both scrambled to your feet, dropping into mirroring deep bows. You felt yourself scrunch your eyes shut tightly as you two did. Your heart jumping a few beats.

There was no way...

“Thank you, so much,” Kara blurted. She squeezed your forearm again, reminding you to speak as well, and you quietly thanked her for that in your head.

“Yes! Thank you.”

You heard Jihoon make a noise- something that resembled a soft exhale, and the air around you shifted.

“You don’t have to be so formal,” he mumbled softly. “Stand up. What’s your names?”

Kara was the first to bolt upright, dragging you with her. Your eyes fell on Jihoon, and you admittedly zoned out a little bit as she began to speak. You heard her say her name and Jihoon said something back to her but... Everything else was like white noise.

Until, of course, Jihoon turned his attention to you.

“And you are…?”

You felt your heart skip a beat at Jihoon’s words, your gaze completely transfixed on him standing there before you. There was no amusement on his face, no trace of humor as he stared you down. No… He wasn’t the Jihoon that you so often saw in videos. Relaxed and at ease, simply taking life around him as it came. This was a Jihoon that you didn’t often see when you were searching the web or watching Going Seventeen. One that you had only dreamt of meeting.

He was entirely focused on the situation at hand, and such a thing was honestly quite scary. You knew that he could tear you down with one word, humiliate you in front of all the trainees around you in an instant, but for some reason you couldn’t really bring yourself to care because _Lee Jihoon_ was staring at you. _Lee Jihoon_ thought that you were training under his entertainment company. Thought that you were there to study under him and honestly it was all too much.

For the first time ever, _Lee Jihoon_ had his eyes on you, and his focused tuned to yours. _This_ was it. The moment so many girls dreamed about. The few moments that you got with your idol, the guy you were completely and totally in love with, and you could spend them however you chose, leave any impression that you wanted. This was-

Kara elbowed you sharply in your ribs, jolting you out of your fantasy and back to the reality at hand. You knew that Kara could get in trouble for letting you in, and you didn’t want to leave a bad impression on Jihoon the first time you got to meet him, so instead you let your gaze drop to the floor.

You knew that if you wanted to focus and say anything smart you had to pretend that it was someone else standing there. Seungcheol, Soonyoung, hell even _Jeonghan_ was less intimidating at the moment then the man standing in front of you right now.

“Oh… Uh… Right, my name…” You trailed off laughing nervously, quickly wracking your brain for any name that you could come up with. It couldn’t be your stage name of course, or your real name either. That would be too risky. You needed something else, something _believable_.

“Sang Goo!” You blurted out suddenly, before your brain had even fully wrapped around the words. “God, that’s so embarrassing, can you imagine forgetting your own name?”

You laughed again and rose your eyes back up to the man in front of you. Once your eyes met his, you felt the nerves bubbling right back up to the surface. His gaze was still as sharp as before, except this time there was something else behind the light in his eyes.

A suspicious glint.

He didn’t completely believe you. Hell, _you_ didn’t even believe you. You knew that you were better at lying then this on a normal occasion, but you supposed maybe meeting Lee Jihoon made the situation a little less normal.

You had so many things you wanted to say to him, so many feelings you felt like you had to tell him.

Honestly you wanted to drop to one knee right then and there and tell him exactly how he had weighed on your heart in the past. How much you yearned to be the person that he came to in his times of need. That person that he would be willing to risk everything for. That person that got to be there to hold his hand when no one else had the right.

“Sang Goo?” He repeated slowly, trying the name out for himself. You could tell by the slight scrunch of his nose that he didn’t really like the way it tasted in his mouth. Not because it wasn’t a good name, it was a brilliant name.

In fact, you were glad that you had always been so obsessed with names and their meanings because this one… Well, it would be a funny story to tell one day.

No, he didn’t like the sound of your name because he knew it was fake, a part of him knew you were lying, _how could he possibly know you were lying?_

“That’s my name!” You repeated brightly. You sent him one of those large toothy smiles that you used to win over your own company’s employees and leaned towards him ever so slightly. “Isn’t it something?”  
Jihoon stared at you for another long moment, and you found it was a little hard to believe that it was really him standing there in front of you. You had imagined this _so many times_. And yet, none of those times had you ever imagined that _this_ would be how it all unfolded.

“Heo Yunjin,” Jihoon addressed, his attention turning to the trainee standing next to you. You let your eyes wander over to the girl. She smiled at Jihoon. “The others are looking for you.”

Yunjin’s face contorted into one of surprise, and she turned around, racing over to where she had previously left her shoes. The girl she had been standing beside, looked after the girl with a desperate expression on her face. Yunjin ran back over to her and patted her on your shoulder.

“Don’t worry Dohae. I’ll be back faster than you even know!” And then Yunjin caught up to Jihoon and followed him out of the room. As soon as Jihoon had left the room, the girl, Dohae, dropped down to the ground, her face as red as an apple.

You didn’t really know how you were supposed to react to that so in response you dropped down to your knees, feeling a little worried for the girl.

“Hey are you-”

“Isn’t he perfect?”

You felt yourself fall silent as you stared at Dohae, watching as she stared absently at her hands. You couldn’t find the words to respond to her, so when she looked up at you, you were surprised that she continued to talk.

“Jihoon I mean… He’s just _so_ perfect,” she elaborated. “Handsome and hardworking. He doesn’t take any shit, but he is also so considerate and-”

She interrupted herself to let a pout whine over her lips.

“He’s just… Perfect. I don’t understand how he could _possibly_ still be single,” she murmured. She brushed her long raven hair out of her face and turned her gaze over to the floor. “And yet I don’t have a chance with him.”

You weren’t sure why _that_ of all things kicked you back into action. Your eyebrows raised and you set your hand on her shoulder.

“What do you _mean_ you don’t have a chance?” You asked suddenly. “Are you telling me that Jihoon doesn’t like tall beautiful girls training to be idols?”

Dohae scoffed at your words, her expression looking honestly a little self-loathing.

You hated to see people hate on themselves. Not because you didn’t do it from time to time but because you were a major hypocrite and you thought that it was important that _everyone_ believed in themselves, especially when you could see the self-worth in someone.

After all, Dohae was gorgeous and she had everything that _any man_ would fall for. Not just Jihoon.

“I mean-”

“Why _wouldn’t_ Jihoon like you? You’re beautiful, I’m sure you have a nice personality. You’re a trainee so you must have musical talent. What is there _not_ to like?” You asked her. You clambered to your feet and dragged Dohae up with you. “If you like him you have to tell him!”

“Are you _crazy_?” Dohae hissed as she got to her feet. “I can’t just tell him!”

“And why not?” You demanded. “Because he would say no? You’re going to be an idol one of these days who _cares_ if he says no. There’ll be another guy out there just as beautiful who will actually appreciate you for how incredible you truly are.”

You heard Kara come up behind you, but you ignored her.

“Besides Jihoon is nice, so he’ll be sweet about it,” you insisted a little less aggressively. You shrugged. “I mean the least you can do is confess. It’ll take the weight off of your shoulders.”

“The thing is… I can’t,” Dohae murmured softly. “I, uh… Well, I just don’t know how to word it.”

You opened your mouth to ask what that meant but before you could Dohae began to elaborate.

“Look, it’s like…”

She wandered over from you and grabbed one of the bags from the walls. She began to rummage through it and then grabbed out a small crumbled piece of paper. Your eyebrows rose at that, but she didn’t seem to mind it. She took a deep breath and then handed you the paper.

Your eyebrows furrowed and you took the paper in your hands. You looked up at her taking note that her face was especially red, and then you unraveled the papers.

You realized quickly that it was a love letter, albeit a poorly written one. Among the many spelling errors and grammar structure errors that you honestly didn’t blame Dohae for too much, it was clear that she didn’t really know what she was trying to say with the letter.

The thoughts were all half-finished and even the thoughts that were started in no way conveyed love.

“Well...” You trailed off as your eyes skimmed back over the contents of the letter. “The sentiment is there.”

And that was true.

The idea of being so completely in love with someone that you couldn’t put it in words was possibly one of the cutest and most timeless themes of a love confession. It conveyed strong emotions. It conveyed a sort of bravery for even attempting to confess.

But with a guy like Jihoon, the confession would have to be better worded. More fledged out. He would find it hard to believe that Dohae’s feelings were completely genuine and he would need a lot of convincing that this were so.

Looking at Dohae you didn’t really think she had what it took to get herself into a relationship with Jihoon without any prompting.

You looked from her and her flushed face, down to her letter.

“I mean, you want to be with him, don’t you?” You asked. Dohae’s eyes shone at your words.

“I only dream about it every night.”

You handed Dohae back her letter tenderly and she took it back, noting the way that you had folded it.

“I’ll help you.”

Dohae’s eyebrows shot up at your words and so did Kara’s.

“ _What?”_ They both exclaimed. You shot Kara in particular an aggravated expression.

“I’ll help. You’re really pretty, and you like Jihoon.”

You reached forward and gestured for her to hand you her phone. You took it and clicked to add yourself to her contacts. You barely caught yourself typing in your real name over the one you had given Jihoon.

You handed her back her phone.

“Text me, I’ll be around.”

You looked at Kara who still looked completely and utterly surprised to hear what you were saying. You opened your mouth to say something to her but before you could Kara grabbed you by your wrist.

“And _now_ Sang Goo and I will be going.”

You could barely wave as Kara dragged you away. She pulled you out of the dance studio and smacked your shoulder. You whined out, grabbing your shoulder.

“Hey what was-”

“What are you _thinking_?” She demanded. “You want to help Dohae get with Jihoon? I can’t even begin to express why that is a dumb idea.”

“It’s not-”

“Seriously, I mean- _Seriously, Sang Goo?_ ”

As she berated you two people came walking down the hall. You both stopped in your conversation to offer them smiles, and you in particular were surprised to find that it was actually Seungcheol and Hansol. Your mouth opened in surprise and you turned your attention over to Kara.

“Was that-”

“Yeah they just _walk around_ the place,” she whispered back, her eyes wide to. “I’ve run into Soonyoung in the elevator more times than I can count.”

“That’s-”

“ _Insane_ I know,” she agreed. She stood there for a moment in shock and then seemed to remember why you two were talking in the first place.

“You know I love you,” she prefaced. You rolled your eyes.

“Dramatic,” you mumbled.

She grabbed you by your shoulder and raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t do anything that will just leave you hurt in the end.”

“ _Okay_ ,” you relented. “Okay, don’t worry. No one is going to get hurt.”

And when you said that you truly did mean it. Even when you knew that you didn’t really have any control over that in the end.

When you went back into the practice room, Jihoon was calling trainees over. You weren’t sure what the context was exactly, but the moment that you stepped foot in the room, Dohae turned towards you.

She had wide eyes, and a terrified expression on her face as she looked over at you. Her mouth fell open when she saw you and she pointed.

“Sang Goo!” She exclaimed loudly. You didn’t know what to say or do really as Jihoon and Dohae and the other two trainees standing there looked over at you. You looked away from the two and around as if a different “Sang Goo” was standing there doing something near you, and you weren’t the one that Dohae was referring to.

When you saw no one around you except for Kara, you scrunched your nose and turned back to them, pointing at yourself.

“Me?”

“Yes! It’s time for vocal training!” Dohae blurted back. She raced over and part way across the practice room she about fell onto the ground, tripping over her own shoes. Your eyebrows rose in surprise at that and you rushed over to catch her. Your arms caught hers just before she hit the floor, and you eased her back up to her feet.

You gave her a minorly panicked look.

“I can’t go to the vocal training,” you hissed to her but to your dismay when you looked up Jihoon was standing right there giving you a suspicious look.

“And why not?” He asked you. You gave him a smile that was all teeth.

“Uh,” you tried to desperately search your brain for a reasonable answer. “I’m dancing right now?”

It might have seemed like a better answer had it not been for the fact that you said it with clear question in your voice and when Jihoon didn’t really seem to care for your answer you, began to hum Aju Nice under your breath half doing the choreography to what you were singing.

His eyebrows rose at you, and you stopped in the middle of your dancing.

“Or I could go to vocal training.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Jihoon agreed, a bit of an edge to his voice.

It became pretty clear to you pretty fast why Dohae had dragged you into this, and sadly it _wasn’t_ because she just wanted to spend time with you.

Vocal training with Jihoon was probably one of the more intimate things that you thought you had ever done in your small amount of time training for your career as a kpop idol and you weren’t even a _trainee_ for Pledis.

You watched as Jihoon slowly handed all four of you some sheet music with lyrics and took one of the girls aside to a corner of the studio where you couldn’t hear them. Dohae reached over and grabbed your wrist as soon as he was out of ear shot, giving you the same look as she had before.

“ _What are we going to do_?”

You shot her a glare.

“You’re just _now_ thinking of that? Dohae I’m not a trainee under Pledis I’m just here helping Kara today,” you hissed back. Her freaked out look didn’t even flicker from her face. You could tell that your words only freaked her out now.

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me?” She blurted back. You gave her an incredulous look.

“We _just_ met!”

Instead of denying that Dohae began to tap her fingers nervously against her leg.

“So what I’m hearing is that right now we are _both_ screwed,” Dohae mumbled. “I’m going to make a fool of myself in there I just know I am.”

You turned to her and you took her hand in yours.

“Dohae-”

“I can barely talk to Soonyoung or- or- Junhui as it is and I don’t even like them. I can’t even manage to talk to the other male trainees! Much less Jihoon-”

“Dohae-”

“And now you’re going to get caught as not being a trainee here and we’re both going to get in a lot of trouble. _I can’t get in trouble_ -”

“Dohae!”

Finally, she stopped talking to give you a frightened look. Your surely frustrated expression turned into a more soothing one when you two made eye contact and you leaned towards her ever so slightly.

“First of all, you need to keep yourself calm,” you told her softly. Dohae gave you a look that you couldn’t really describe- eyes squinted towards you, eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed. You waited until it faltered. “Second of all I’ll go first.”

Dohae’s eyebrows shot up, and her fingers tightened around your wrists.

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

It was an awful idea. But you figured in the long run, it was the best plan. If anything was going to happen in the next hour the person who you wanted to be the most in the crossfires was you. Sure, you had just met Dohae but you could already tell that she had a good soul. She must not have been working with Jihoon for long before today because otherwise, she wouldn’t be so worried about this.

You weren’t sure how she had been able to avoid this in the past, but you did know one thing for sure. If you were going to help _her_ overcome her fear of Jihoon (why _were_ you doing this anyways- it went against the entire reason you were doing all of this in the first place) you were going to have to get her out of this for as long as possible.

“How long do sessions with Jihoon tend to last?” You asked. She shrugged.

“It depends-”

“So, I just have to keep him busy,” you murmured. It was mostly to yourself, but the plan was already building itself in your brain. Postpone actually singing, drag out singing as if you were bad at it. Or just ask him for help with a really hard song.

You rubbed your hand nervously over your knees, but as you began the action you noticed that Dohae was watching you. You shot her a confident smile and patted your knees.

“Easy,” you stated pointedly. You could tell that she wasn’t entirely convinced by you and you reached over, giving her a comforting pat that you immediately regretted. “Seriously you don’t-”  
“Who’s next?”

Both you and Dohae jumped about a foot in the air at the sudden sound of Jihoon and the girl he had taken returning to the room. Jihoon didn’t look even slightly amused by the jump, and the girl he was with didn’t look so much bothered as she looked concerned for the two of you.

You all sat there in silence for a few moments, no one really sure what to say until Jihoon got tired of the silence. He cleared his throat and placed his hand on the door frame.

“Well?”

That- luckily- kicked you back to action. You jumped up from the seat and smiled brightly at him.

“That would be me!” You stated excitedly. You made a bit of a show about stretching your arms out, and then you rushed over to Jihoon. You gave Dohae a wink. “Wish me luck!”

Jihoon sit down at his desk, his fingers fiddling around with a few of the items on it. You watched quietly, unsure of what to say or where to stand or even where to go. This action seemed to only irritate him further. His brows furrowed in frustration and he gestured at the chair beside him.

“Sit down,” he mumbled.

You didn’t hesitate for even a moment at the instruction, knowing that you didn’t want to make Jihoon upset at all. You still needed to convince him- at least for the day- that you were a trainee here... Without saying those words exactly (if that were even really possible). You squirmed in the chair beside Jihoon, thinking that it was awfully close to the boy.

You had only had a small number of crushes before you had one on Jihoon, and they had all been fairly short-lived. There was something about people that they just didn’t end up living to the expectations that you had for them.

Joon in elementary school ended up being frustratingly self-centered. You found that out when he refused to share any of his pudding cup with you at recess.

Lee in high school was too busy fucking other girls to really care about you in the end.

Your initial infatuation for them would always disappear eventually, and you would be left with this realization that you not only shouldn’t be with this person, or that they weren’t really what you had expected.

The point was you eventually moved on.

But when you looked at Jihoon, when you sat this close to him and you could barely breath, it was hard to imagine ever moving on.

He was so intune to the world around him, it was kind of incredible to think that it was just him moving there. He had this fluid motion about the way he moved. He grabbed his papers and shuffled them in such a way that you almost didn’t realize that he was even moving.

You watched him in awe as he tapped on the microphone before him, shifting it so that it was directly in front of you. Since getting picked up by an entertainment company you had been in front of a number of microphones. All of which were solely set there for you. You were used to being the center of attention.

Unafraid of what would happen if you were to mess up because when you got behind a microphone, there was nothing you were couldn’t do. Some people were just born knowing who they were meant to be and what they were meant to do in life. You had always sort of known deep down that you were meant to sing, and that was only further confirmed when you wrapped your fingers around the metal of a microphone.

But with Jihoon there, you were suddenly at a loss for words. Being in front of the microphone meant absolutely nothing to you. Your confidence was gone.

“So, what will you be singing today?” Jihoon asked you without even looking up at you. “It would be best if you just gave me an idea of your range is- How about you singing something with a lower register and then something with a higher register, and we’ll go from there. Do you have anything that fits that?”

You had a million songs, that could fit with this. A million responses that you knew that you should try to get out to make Jihoon believe that you had even the smallest semblance of intelligence.

But instead of any of that you just looked at him. You couldn’t get even a single thought straight in your mind. All you could think about was the fact that Jihoon was expecting something from you that you couldn’t really deliver.

“Sang Goo?”

You blinked.

“Lee Jihoon?” You responded back stupidly. You could tell he was annoyed by the slight raise of his eyebrow towards you, and honestly it didn’t do too much to help you find your words. He grunted softly, and his index finger tapped the desk impatiently.

“Are you actually planning on singing?”

“Yes!”  
You felt your eyes narrow as you thought of a song that you could sing for Jihoon right off the top of your head. Not much came to mind- until as you were flying through your options you remembered that song Elkie had come out with.

Elkie was a good friend of yours- a cube entertainment trainee that debuted in the group CLC. You hadn’t seen her in a while, but you had been utterly obsessed with her song _I dream_ when it came out. It was so beautiful.

Your eyes sparkled with excitement as you pulled out your phone to bring up an instrumental.

“Are you excited for what I’-”

“Just play the song,” Jihoon said softly, not even batting an eye at your antics. You huffed, but shifted anyways, clicking your music on and taking a deep breath.

“ _When the snow starts to fall, my heart flutters so much that I close my eyes_ ,” you started off softly. You felt a little raw singing the song under such intense scrutiny from Jihoon. You had never really been shy of singing in front of people before. Sure, the was the normal nerves of singing in front of a crowd, and the little shakiness that sometimes accompanied an important recording, but overall, you were never nervous to sing in front of others.

When you had first met Kyuhyun you had shocked him by your unabashed attitude and how comfortable you were in a studio. But something about today. Something about this moment. You were so nervous to be singing.

Especially when as you started to sing Jihoon’s pen dropped from his hand, and he looked up at you in shock.

“ _I hope you’ll listen to my heart. I had-”_

“Stop.”

You stammered over the lyrics of the song that you were singing and looked up to Jihoon in complete shock. He had a sort of breathless look on his face- as if he had just been running, and... Still was. The way he looked at you, was a little overwhelming honestly. You turned away your face red.

“Wh... What’s wrong? Was it the way I was singing?”

Again, that shyness that you simply weren’t used to overtook you. You weren’t sure why your heart was beating so hard in your chest or why the sudden thought of singing again made you want to throw up but it really did. You took a deep shaky breath, trying to remind you that there was nothing that you should be so nervous about.

“No, nothing like that,” Jihoon said finally, interrupting your stream of thoughts. When you looked back at him, he looked less shocked. In fact, his expression was once again, relaxed and monotone. “Your voice is beautiful. That’s all. Can you start again from the beginning?”

You knew that wasn’t everything, but you were relieved to be let off the hook anyways.

You resumed the song from the beginning- paying close attention to the way you articulated each and every word. Jihoon gave you a few notes, which you took to heart- it took a lot of cross-analysis to apply it to your current stages, but you liked the input he had to give- and finally after you thought a fair amount of time had passed, you stopped pestering Jihoon with questions and told him you were feeling better about your vocals.

When Jihoon told Dohae he would just have to work with her another time, you swore you almost saw her faint from relief- and that alone made everything you had just risked worth it.

 _And_ that was the extent of social interaction that you could manage for the day. So, with a deep breath you mustered up a few more smiles and goodbyes and began to head out.

You had a lot of practice to make up for and you had performances later this week.

God Kyuhyun was probably going to kill you making up for the time you wasted today.

“Hey wait!”

You skidded in your tracks, your heart beginning to thump in your chest at the sound of Jihoon calling you. Maybe he wasn’t calling you, maybe he was calling someone else and it just _sounded_ like he was calling for you.

“Sang Goo, wasn’t it?”

You wanted to be put off by the fact that he _was_ indeed calling for you. After all, every second that you spent at Pledis was another second that you risked him finding out that you weren’t supposed to be there. Every moment that you spent there talking to Jihoon was another moment that you spent lying to him. It was an awful way to start off when meeting a person. And you so _desperately_ didn’t want to start off knowing Jihoon with lies.

You turned around, brushing your hair out of your face as you shot him a tentative smile.

“Oh, Jihoon. Are you calling for me?”

And _he was._

You couldn’t lie, you felt near light-headed when you realized that Jihoon really _was_ talking to you. His gaze was a _lot_ less intimidating now, more observant than anything else. You weren’t sure what he was now looking for when he saw you, but you knew that he was looking for _something_ specific. You tried not to let it show that you could tell, letting an innocent look shine in your eyes.

You, he really was looking at _you_. He had called what he thought to be your name, he had been trying to grant your attention. He had discovered you existed only a few hours prior, and he was already using that information to his advantage.

Your heart simply couldn’t _stop_ beating.

“Yeah, I was wondering where you were off to,” he replied as he slowly strolled over to you. He slid his hands into his pockets as he took in your after-practice appearance. “The other trainees are going out to eat. Considering you’re new, I wouldn’t really advise missing out on it.”

“Honestly…” And this was it. All you had to do was tell him the truth. The rouse didn’t need to go on after all. You had done what you needed to for the day.

“I’m not a trainee under Pledis.”

 _Good_ , that was a great start. Jihoon looked a little surprised by your words, but it wasn’t anything to be too concerned about. You could tell by the mood that he was in that he wouldn’t be angry. He would probably understand if you just explained it.

“See my friend _is_ a trainee and she needed me to help with something, and we really didn’t want her to get into any trouble, so I just thought I would play along.”

Good, _honest_.

“I sort of figured,” he murmured. “You didn’t really seem like you belonged here.”

“I _am_ a trainee,” you replied, stubbornly. “I’m training under Kithewhale.”

You could see the confusion in his eyes, and you sighed.

“It’s a small company,” you explained. “I should be going. What did you stop me for anyways?”

Jihoon looked at you with a strange look in his eyes. One that honestly, you didn’t really recognize.

“It’s your voice,” he replied.

You stared at him, confusion crossing over your face.

“I’m sorry?” You asked.

“At first I thought it was just me imagining things but… Your voice is _so_ familiar,” he insisted. “I knew when you sang. I’ve heard your voice before.”  
You stared at him, unsure of what to say. You had just debuted. Only a handful of stages, one mini album, and as far as you knew, Jihoon and Seventeen weren’t at any of them. Sure, you had already gained a lot of attention for your stages and for your whole concept, but that didn’t mean that Jihoon should’ve heard about you at all.

You had to play this right, after all, you _had_ unwittingly told him the actual company that you were under. If he connected the dots, then he might actually figure it out. But you also knew that Jihoon had no reason to let this keep him up too late. So, you just needed to…

“Well, I am quite the fan. Maybe you’ve stumbled upon my covers online before?” You suggested. Jihoon looked at you, his eyes narrow.

“I think I would’ve remembered the name Sang Goo.”

“I don’t use that name for my Youtube covers,” you said with a laugh. You could see that there was still doubt in Jihoon’s mind, but you had convinced him _just_ enough that you knew now you could leave. “Well, I have my own schedule to keep up with at Kit. Sorry for being trouble.”

Jihoon didn’t say another word to you, and as soon as you were out of his sight you pulled out your phone calling your friend. He answered after only two rings of his cellphone.  
“Y/n what’s-”

“Joonjae, how much do you love me?” You asked instead. You heard a drawn-out sigh from the other end of the line.

“How is it that I can see the expression on your face even though I’m not standing in front of you?”

Joonjae was one of your oldest friends. When you two had been in primary and the school bully had decided that they needed to teach Joonjae a lesson for spending recess in the computer lab, you had been the one who helped him escape out the window and held his hand as you guys escaped the school yard, running halfway across town before finally being picked up by the police an hour later.

Your whole school had gone under lockdown because of you two, and despite the fact that you had both been grounded for two entire months over the ordeal, it had made you two the best of friends, and lucky for you, Joonjae was a _huge_ computer nerd.

“Do you think that you can put up a fake YouTube channel for me in which I sing covers to songs online?” You asked. You clicked the button on your car fob to unlock the door, pressing your phone up to your ear with your shoulder as you got into the car. “ _Please_ ¸ for your bestest friend?”

He sighed.

“I swear these days you just use me,” he murmured. “Honestly when was the last time we went out? Is Siae too popular for little old Joonjae?”

You rolled your eyes at his antics.

“We had lunch just yesterday Joonjae,” you mumbled. “And you know I wouldn’t ask unless I really needed the help.”

There was a moment of silence on Joonjae’s end, and you hummed into the phone.

“Can you do it?” You asked him softly.

“It’s already been done,” he replied. “You started the channel a couple of years back, a thousand subscribers, and you get a fair amount of views on every video. Lucky you I have copies of videos of you singing.”

You sighed in relief.

“Thanks. Lunch is on me tomorrow okay?”

“Anything for you!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Do you really think he could have recognized it was you?”

The question was a little off-putting but only because you weren’t really sure what the right answer to it was. On one hand you knew that there was no way that he could have recognized your voice. He couldn’t be a fan of yours, and you didn’t have enough music out for your voice to necessarily be recognizable.

But even so, when you had looked at Jihoon then... You could see the recognition in his eyes. As if suddenly, everything was falling into place. It didn’t seem like it could be possible for him to be able to recognize anything about you.

You nervously clicked your tongue and raised your hand to your hair. Maybe you should be styling it different. Dying it for stages? You didn’t want it to be too obvious that it was you. Not just yet.

“Maybe,” you mumbled. You lowered your hand back to your fork and nervously pushed around the green lettuce of the salad. “I don’t know.”

“You know a part of me always thought that you were a little crazy,” Joonjae admitted with a half-laugh. “Becoming an idol just for him?”

You scoffed and shook your head.

“Yeah, I know,” you murmured. “It really is crazy.”

“No but- Maybe it isn’t,” Joonjae responded. “I joke about it but... You’re different now.”

You looked up at Joonjae, surprised to find him looking at you with a serious expression on his face. He wasn’t even looking at his food any longer. Instead all of his attention was on you. Eyebrows furrowed and lips drawn tight.

“The second you signed at Kilt you became more confident. Unabashedly sure of yourself,” Joonjae mumbled. You opened your mouth to protest the statement but then you thought over what he had said and realized you couldn’t really.

You had nothing to say about the statement. You had no proof otherwise, and you honestly had nothing you wanted to say. So instead, you looked back down at your salad.

“You know what’s stupidest? Eating vegetables. I don’t know why I got it in my head that I need to actually be healthy if I’m an idol,” you murmured back. “I hate purple lettuce.”

Joonjae laughed at the conversation change, but he didn’t oppose it. Instead, he propped his head up on his hand and beamed at you.

“Then only eat the green lettuce,” he said with the smallest of laughs. “It’s got all those important nutrients.”

You grumbled under your breath and poked at the lettuce, but as you did, you saw a girl and a boy pass. They both had dark masks covering their faces and dark hats hiding their hair. You sighed when you looked at them, scrunching your nose slightly.

You knew that it wasn’t exactly likely that they were wearing the mask and hats to hide their appearances because they were popular, but you noted it was something you should think about. Joonjae was a trainee at JYP entertainment, and after you had been a trainee for so long you had never really thought about what it would be like when you two actually had fame.

Your debut would change your life- at least not until you revealed your actual face. But when Joonjae debuted there would be a lot of things that you wouldn’t be able to do anymore. For one, you wouldn’t be able to sit at this restaurant and eat together.

God netizens would have a _field_ day if they thought that you were dating someone. Setting your whole debut concept aside, they just _loved_ to dig into idol’s personal lives and decide whether or not their significant others were “good enough” for them or not. You could hardly even imagine what that would end up being like.

“Do you think I’ve made a mistake Joonjae?” You asked him suddenly. He snorted.

“Yeah. No doubt.”

That had to be what you loved about him the most. He was blunt with you. He told you everything as it was. A lot of people, these days, liked to dance around what the problems were ,with your debut and with what you were planning on doing with your life. But not Joonjae. He laughed in your face when you told him your intentions.

He pointed out every flaw in the plan. He told you exactly how it could fail and how crazy you were for even trying to achieve it. And then he told you that he couldn’t wait to see you on that stage.

Kyuhyun wasn’t a really big fun of Joonjae. He said he didn’t get good vibes from him or something but... That didn’t really matter to you. From that first day you met Joonjae, you knew that in some weird way he had your back, and that no matter what he said- He believed in you.

“Do you think that Jihoon is going to like me?” He asked conversationally. You snorted.

“I don’t even like you. So, do with that what you will dear.”

-

The next few days you decide it’s about time you focused on what is most important. Your stages. No more outside distractions, no more thinking of Jihoon- unless it was completely necessary. Sang Goo needed to take a step back, and Sihae needed to step forward.

Practice with Kyuhyun was excruciating, but it was worth it to make sure that you didn’t mess up any of the songs that you were performing. While your A-track was a song that focused most specifically on your vocals, and less on your dance ability, your B-track was so heavy on dance that it was important you practiced it multiple times a day.

You were honestly a really big fan of dancing. While singing and writing lyrics was a passion of yours that you simply couldn’t deny, dancing was sort of like a guilty pleasure of yours.

You loved the thrill that performing came with. The excitement that stemmed from hardly being able to breathe after a performance and feeling like you might fall over you were so exhausted. You loved making faces as you pulled quick, intricate movements.

People who saw your B-track applauded you non-stop for your dance skills. It was one of the things that Kyuhyun had been so initially shocked by when he met you. You learned dances fast. Worked hard until you made them look clean and professional- just like the people who had performed it before you.

That was also why you knew that you would be fine in the kpop business- even when under a small company. You were resilient. Determined to show people just how talented you were.

And it payed off.

When you heard the applause after your very last showcase for your debut you knew that- at least in the meantime- all of your hard work had been worth it. You had fought hard to get yourself here. You had spent hours in the practice room trying to get yourself ready for all of this and after finally hearing the applause- the people cheering your name.

Well, you just knew that it had all been worth it.

And you couldn’t wait to start practicing all over again.

You felt your phone buzz in your pocket and your nose scrunched unsurely. You glanced down at the glowing phone screen, surprised when you saw the message was from Dohae.

It felt like it had been ages since you had been at Pledis. Years since you had met Jihoon, and in reality...

 **Dohae:** Are you still willing to help me out?

You stared at the text, feeling a little out of body at the moment. You could hardly believe that she was actually texting you. That you had actually agreed to do this. You were a little foolish to have ever thought it was a good idea. Why would you _ever_ help someone else get with the person that you wanted to be with?

Well... The answer _was_ pretty obvious. Because you just wanted Jihoon to be happy. There were no other ways around it. If Jihoon could be with anyone- it didn’t matter whether it was you or not. All that mattered was that he was happy.

So, here you were, sitting across from a tall, gorgeous, _figidity_ _g_ irl, nursing a cup of coffee in your hand while you stared at the ice in your drink.

You had never been the biggest fan of coffee- at least not before you needed it. You supposed that was how it was with most people. Coffee was bitter, and personally you didn’t think it was much worth the fuss just for a caffeine rush.

But when it came to your early trainee days that “caffeine rush” became necessary if you wanted to get through a long day at work. Working with Kyuhyun was a mess from start to finish it was activity and promotion after activity and promotion. Working a straight 24 hours without any caffeine was manageable but not in any way ideal.

“I still think you should be able to write a letter to him to tell you how you feel,” you murmured softly. As you started at your drink. It was a concoction of flavors- mostly sweet. You didn’t really like coffee drinks that weren’t sweet.

“I really can’t get the words out right,” you murmured back. “There’s too much I want to say.”

“Then say just that!” You suggested softly. You reached down into your bag and began to rummage through it until you got your hands on the notepad that you had brought alone with you. You set it in front of her, handing her a pencil. She scrunched her eyebrows.

“Shouldn’t I use something else to write it with? Something pretty?” She asked. She turned to the side to dig through her own purse. “Pink sparkly pen-”

“Jihoon is rather practical,” you replied pointedly. “A regular pencil is much better.”

Dohae’s eyebrows furrowed at the statement but she didn’t say too much about it. She just quietly set the pen she had grabbed aside and stared at the blank paper before her. You wanted to give her as much creative freedom as possible, but sitting there for about five minutes, with nothing else written there and you realized that she needed some prompting. Your nose scrunched.

“Uh, well we could start by ‘Dear Jihoon’ at the top,” you mumbled softly. Dohae’s mouth dropped into an ‘o’ and she scribbled down the words you had spoken. You sighed and set your drink down on the table to the side. You rested your head on your balled up hands, pushing your elbows halfway across the small round table.

You smiled at Dohae gently and lowered one of your hands down to the table, tapping the paper with your index finger twice.

“Now, what do you think of when you think of Jihoon?” You asked her softly.

“He smells like laundry detergent,” she blurted. Your mouth dropped and her face began to slowly grow red as she looked at you. “I- I- mean.”

“No, it’s okay, we can- we can work with that,” you interrupted with a wave of your hand. You leaned back, trying to focus on what you thought about when you were near Jihoon, and what Dohae could probably be thinking of when she said that. “So try then to talk about how he reminds you of home.”

Dohae’s head fell to the side. You couldn’t help but compare her to that of a student who just couldn’t get a good grip on the equation that was written on the board. You thought it was interesting- mostly because you felt like the answer was pretty obvious.

“Like... When I think about you. I can’t help but compare you to that of my freshly cleaned clothes. So warm in my hands that I have to set them down on my bed and I don’t want to put them away right away like my mom wants. I want to wait and hold on to them and feel the warmth against my chest no matter how much it burns.

I suppose a similar comparison for you could be to that of the sun. You are strong and powerful- at least socially if you would argue not so much so physically. You drag people in and people only flourish under your attention. But I worry that if I look at you, I will become to dependent. I fall for your mystery. I will burn under you.”

You looked up from the table- when had your eyes even lowered to it- shocked to see that Dohae was furiously scribbling down on the notepad that you had provided her. At this point she was about halfway down the page.

Your silence caused Dohae to look up at you, her eyes wide.

“Yes? Don’t stop- This is incredible,” Dohae whispered. You rolled your eyes, resting your cheek lazily on your head once again.

“Dohae, you’re supposed to write it yourself,” you mumbled. “It means nothing if it doesn’t come from a genuine place.”  
“But it _does_ come from a genuine place!” Dohae protested. “I genuinely like him! And I genuinely want to write him a love letter! And I am genuinely _writing_ the letter.”  
You took a deep sigh and looked away from Dohae, your eyes lazily falling on the world outside of you.

You didn’t tend to wake up and go out this early in the day. If you _were_ up this early in the morning it would be because you were at dance practice- not because you were out getting coffee with someone. It was interesting to see so many people outside, running to and fro. There were parents rushing their children to school, adults jogging down the street with their phones strapped to their arms, even teenagers walking around with their friends, their backpack charms swinging back and forth.

You sort of wished you were in bed at the moment.

You were startled out of your thoughts by Dohae touching your wrist gently with her soft fingers. Your eyes trailed over to her, and she gave you a doe-eyed expression, her bottom lip jutting out just so.

“ _Please_.”

“I suppose this is just a long-winded way to tell you something that is pretty hard for me to say right out. It’s easier to just circle around those three words with metaphor after metaphor. You’re the wind on a windy day. The stars sparkling in the eyes of a hopeful child. You’re so grounded and yet so far out of reach.

Sometimes I forget that we are in the same field. It seems like you are in a completely different world then me... Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

You bite down on your lip unsurely, and as you did Dohae looked up at you.

“And?” She asked. You shrugged.

“Sign it,” you replied. Her mouth fell open and she leaned forward.

“What? We can’t just leave it there! You don’t even tell him that I love him,” she exclaimed. You snickered humorlessly.

“You can’t tell him right away,” you said dismissively. “Don’t you want to know what he says about the first letter before you tell him you love him?”  
Dohae leaned back, but she didn’t look very convinced so you continued with: “Besides, just tell him that you love him, and it will scare him away. He’s... Odd. He needs to be helped up the stairs, don’t just magically pop him at the top.”  
Dohae’s eyebrows were still scrunched together in frustration, but despite that she still scribbled down a signature for the letter.

“Is that it?”

You didn’t have Dohae do anything else with the letter. You told her to leave it in Jihoon’s studio, but to never mention it to him. Just to wait and see if he said anything. You weren’t really sure if that was a good idea- but what you did know, was that this was as far as you had ever gone with anyone, so the rest was sort of up in the air.

You would assume that someone as beautiful as Dohae would have plently of experience in this sort of thing but judging from the way her hands shook as she fingered the edge of the envelope, you assumed that maybe she had been more on the end of rejecting people then giving out love letters.

You had honestly sort of expected Dohae to grow bored of everything as well. You didn’t think she was the kind of person to spend her time pining over someone- you thought she would have moved on rather quickly. You also honestly hadn’t really thought that Jihoon would write back a love letter. Or even approach Dohae about anything.

Just in case you had reminded Dohae to text you if anything happened, but the urgent text message to meet her at a park one day had surprised you nonetheless.

“ _He wrote back_.”  
The words echoed through your brain in a way that didn’t click at first, but Dohae didn’t not even seem to notice. She dug the crisp white envelope from her purse and shoved it into your hands.

“I can’t read it- you have to do it, you just have to-”

You didn’t want to read it either. You didn’t think you could manage to see the words that Jihoon was sure to say. Criticism for the lack of creativity? A formal rejection of your- well _Dohae’s feelings?_

Honestly you didn’t think you would be able to handle it. And you weren’t sure what you would tell Dohae if that was the truth.

However, even so, you slid out the small piece of folded paper.

_Dear Dohae,_

_A love letter? It’s interesting that you chose to approach your feelings in such a manner. Don’t you think it’s a little cliché? Redundant? I’m like the sun, huh? Can’t say I’ve personally heard that before, but I know it’s been said. Such an interesting comparison to make. Seems flawed._

_Why am I like the sun? Because I shine so brightly? Because I am the light of your life?_

_I’ve always imagined myself to be more like the moon. Can you figure out why?_

_Sincerely, Jihoon_

“What? What does it say?” Dohae asked eagerly. You hummed, letting the letter fall to your side.

“He’s testing us,” you replied. You turned and dug into your own bag, grabbing out that same notepad, and shoving into Dohae’s hands. “Write this:

Are you really so old that you can’t comprehend the small beauty in writing a love letter? The excitement at receiving an envelope and knowing that it contains sweet nothings about you from someone who holds you dear to your heart. You may have fooled others but I know that you are a romantic at heart. You wouldn’t have written back if that weren’t true. So I won’t be too dissuaded by your words.

You know that is one of the reasons I fell in love with you-”

“How did you know that!”

You jumped, almost having forgotten that Dohae was even there.

“Wh-what?”

“How did you know that one of the reasons that I fell for Jihoon was because of his words. The way he choses his lyrics- I'm jealous of the way he can write,” Dohae gushed. She paused, tapping the pencil lightly against her leg. “You know what- You're like that too.”

You were at a loss for words, amazed.

“Uh... Lucky guess,” you murmured. “Don’t interrupt me.”

_And the comparision to the sun isn’t anything so basic. It’s because of a quote from David Viscott. “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” I feel love for you, as do fans and your family and your friends. Therefore you are loved. I want to be loved by you, and you do love a lot. In that way I hope to feel your light from both sides- not just the one. At the moment one of my sides is very cold._

_However, I am not completely clueless to the moon comparison you speak of. You are obviously like the moon in many practical senses- You thrive in the nighttime, and are not seen for who you are by most. But there are a select few who see you in your true light- the moonlight that you shine so brightly- and admire you for who you are. That’s why you like the comparison to the moon better. Everyone compares people to the sun. No one compares them to the moon._

_So then my moon, was my answer acceptable?_

_Love, Dohae_

_“_ Wow,” Dohae said as soon as she wrote the last word. “ _Wow_ , how are you so _good_ at this?”

You turned to blankly stare at her, but she didn’t mind. She just grinned.

“No way he won’t fall for me with these letters this is amazing!”

“We’ll see,” you mumbled, trying to remind yourself not to get your hopes up. “When he writes back we’ll see.”

When Jihoon wrote back next you met Dohae at a small coffee shop down the street from Pledis. Dohae had insisted you two meet at Pledis, but you informed her that probably wasn’t the best idea. You two didn’t need to be caught doing this.

_Dear Dohae,_

_I don’t ever think I’ve met anyone brave enough to call me a romantic at heart to my face. Well... As to my face as it gets with you I suppose- Odd by the way that you would chose to write me letters instead of just talking to me- I stand by that assertion. However I will relent to you that I do enjoy the back and forth of love letter writing... It’s easier to say how you feel in a written letter that you can edit._

_I had never heard that quote by David Viscott, but your interpretation was... Very interesting. Taken into account, rest assured, however I don’t think I am the one meant to warm you. Before these letters I would simply say that we are too different._

_But that comparison of myself to the moon... You passed the test Dohae. You truly do have a flair for words. I didn’t give you enough credit before._

_Tell me another quote that makes you think about me. I love to read what you have to say. Each word is so carefully chosen, it makes me feel.... A different kind of special then I have ever felt before._

_Sincerely, Jihoon_

You couldn’t believe it.

You two had passed. Somehow you had managed to decipher Jihoon’s code and pass his test. You didn’t know how you did it? Jihoon was a hard egg to crack. He was complicated- More complicated than anyone that you had ever spoken to before in your life.

Most people were easy to figure out, but with Jihoon it had taken you a while.

Maybe your feelings for him clouded your judgement and made it harder to analyze him, and maybe it was just because he was the sort of person that was very guarded. Too quiet around people that he was close to and not close to for you to figure out if his entire persona was fake or not. After all, you couldn’t say what was true for him or not when you didn’t actually know him.

And who exactly _was_ “him” when he was constantly in the spotlight. Only he could really know. All that you could do was ponder until he spoke your ponderings into truth.

And yet, you had never imagined being right.

“I don’t get it,” Dohae mumbled. You looked up at her, almost haven forgotten that she was there at all. Her face was flush red from the cold and it made you sigh to look at. You picked up your cup of hot coffee, and took a sip of it. When she saw she quickly took a sip of her own warm beverage.

“We passed the test,” you replied. “Now he’s trying to see our skills.”

“Our skills?”

“He wants to know what we can do for him,” you replied, tapping your index finger to the corner of your lip. “If he were to date us if we would be able to do much for him. Do we meet his romantic intellect?”

“Romantic intellect?” Dohae asked.

“Are we a William Shakespeare or a Donald Trump... For lack of a better comparison,” you explained. “If we aren’t romantic enough for him, he won’t want anything to do with us. He is a romantic creature at heart. Anyone who loves love wants to be loved in same sort of way as their wildest dreams portray.”

“Oh.”

“Write what I say okay?”

Dohae nodded and picked up her pencil and paper.

_“I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.” -Nick Giovanni._

_You Lee Jihoon are the winter. Born on the day of the first snow. A snow prince- If I will. In so many ways you are this amazing, unique persona. The actual personification of a snowflake- If I may. You are so delicate to the touch. Not as in I actually fear physically breaking you, but I fear losing you. I fear that the wrong words or actions will shatter our relationship in such a way as someone may destroy a snowflake._

_However, what I fear more than that is the inevitability of such a thing. Snowflakes don’t last forever. I am no fool. If our relationship is that fragile, are we doomed to never reach the snow? Become a part of something that lasts so much longer._

_I would like to last a very long time in your presence Lee Jihoon._

_Love, Dohae._

This time, your answer from Jihoon came quickly. The same day even. You were surprised to see Dohae again so soon, but... Not disappointed.

_Dear Dohae,_

_If I am a snow prince... A snowflake, the night. Everything cold and dark then I suppose, my dear Dohae, that makes you the sun doesn’t it? You are bright in your letters. Very pointed and honest. Each phrase and word is well-imagined, and you don’t stray a moment from your thoughts like you seem to sometimes in real-life._

_For some reason I imagine you differently from your letters in reality. I imagine your smile is blinding, your eyes, when met with mine, would melt my heart. That holding your hand could possibly be the sort of venture that I ought to deal with. Imagine that, holding you close to me on a cold winter’s night. My warmth protecting you from the chill in the air._

_Why does that suddenly sound so alluring to me?_

_Love, Jihoon_

“What’s he doing this time?” Dohae asked in awe. “What’s the test? What do we have to do?”

You stared at the paper in your hands in complete silence for a few moments and then- finally- set it down, Jihoon’s words fresh in your mind.

“There is no test this time,” you replied. “He is complimenting us.”

With each letter that Jihoon wrote and sent to you two came a new challenge. Every word that he wrote was deliberate and was something that took surprisingly little deciphering from you to piece together.

You couldn’t help but get lost in the words that you two wrote, and the fun you had while pressed closed to Dohae in the oddest of places, to the point where when she invited you over to Pledis one day to hang out, you... Didn’t say no.

You had very few friends like Dohae. You knew the only reason that you two were even close at all was because of writing letters to Jihoon. Dohae was pretty, and talented, and had a sort of blind optimistic look on the world.

Of course, such an observation wasn’t to be misconstrued- You too were talented and optimistic, but you were a tad more practical than Dohae. Always able to decipher what was realistically achievable (and always trying to calculate it).

“Sang Goo?”

You froze in your tracks, your eyes screwing shut in complete and utter disbelief.

You had been _so_ careful.

You had checked Seventeen’s scheduled- made Dohae meet with you outside of Pledis for weeks just to avoid this _exact_ thing. And yet, here you were, in the _exact_ situation you hadn’t wanted to be in.

“Jihoon!” You turned to him a flashed him a bright smile, one that made his expression change rather suddenly. He went from looking at you in confusion, to complete and utter awe. Like he was suddenly seeing you in a whole new light. Like something he had been entertaining for some time about yo was suddenly clicked into place.

“My friend of a peculiar name,” Jihoon stated with a small shake of his head. The sentence itself sent a shiver through you, and not because of his rather accurate speculations on the sincerity of your name, but because of the part that started it. _My friend_.  
Were you and Jihoon friends?

You didn’t really think you could be. After all you had barely interacted, and the time you had it had mostly been Jihoon being suspicious of your intentions and presence at Pledis. Honestly it kind of scared you how completely perceptive he was. It was like he always one step ahead of you and like he always saw right through your every lie.

But that wasn’t possible.

Was it?  
“I keep telling you, Sang Goo is a perfectly normal name,” you responded with a wave of yor hands. “Besides, my parents were the one’s who fortunately named me it. Not me.”

Jihoon didn’t look like he wanted to contine speaking on the reality of your name, which you were certainly relieved by. You didn’t want to have to keep lying about it anyways.

“What are you doing at Pledis, Kiltthewhale?” Jihoon asked. You smiled at being called the name of your company, and shrugged.

“Actually, came by to see Dohae,” you replied. “I hope that’s okay.”

Jihoon rose an eyebrow at you curiously.

“Are you and Dohae friends?” He asked.

The speculation in his tone of voice made you shift uncomfortably. If you told Jihoon that you were friends with Dohae he had reason to believe you were helping her write the letters for him. However, such an outcome was _extremely_ unlikely.

Dohae said that Jihoon and her hadn’t yet spent any time alone together. Which was good because you weren’t sure what would happen when they did when Dohae couldn’t really handle that at this point in time. Maybe with other people but certainly not alone,

Your answer here had to be precise. Not an avoiding answer, but not too direct of an answer. You couldn’t give him any reason to suspect that you were maybe not what he was expecting.

“Maybe,” you replied. “I don’t know yet. If you and I are friends, I suppose Dohae and I must be too. We’ve spent a deal of time talking recently.”

“Oh,” Jihoon replied. He turned away from you for a moment, and then, almost as quickly as he turned away he looked back at you. “What do you mean _if_ you and I are friends?”

 _Perfect_. Distract him from his initial question with a prosing of your own.

“How can we be friends? We’ve hardly interacted,” you replied pointedly. Jihoon huffed.

“How can we not be friends? I complimented your singing voice. Do you know how often I do that?”  
You did know that it couldn’t be often that Jihoon complimented someone’s singing voice, but you didn’t say that. You didn’t want to let off that you knew too much. Instead you looked forward and spotted Dohae in the hallway looking at her phone.

“Dohae!”

God, she looked absolutely stunning.

She had on a white crop top, and black pants. It looked like she had just gotten done filming something, as she also had big combat boots on that made her look even taller then she already was. The crop top of course brought attention to her slim figure, and it was all topped off by her full, long dark hair, and the glimpse of her signature large hoop earrings hidden in the mop of hair.

Dohae smiled at you and waved brightly.

“Goo! Oppa!” She greeted, simply waving at you but bowing for Jihoon. “Good to see you!”  
Jihoon’s eyebrows furrowed, when he watched the action.

“If you’ve dropped the formalities with Goo, drop the formalities with me too,” Jihoon said gruffly. “Aren’t we all friends.”

The look on Dohae’s face as she looked up at Jihoon was utterly priceless.

“We are?”

Jihoon looked frustrated by the answer but didn’t voice so. Instead he walked away without another word. Dohae turned to you and gave you a confused expression.

“Did I say something wrong?” She asked you. You shrugged.

“Apparently we both did.”

When you finally got home that night, all you wanted to do was sleep. The last thing on your mind was Dohae and Jihoon. No, instead you thought of your company, and your bed, and talking to Kyuhyun about a song idea you had.

So the next day when you were hard at work with your own things, you were surprised to feel your phone buzzing in your pocket.

You looked down at it, and saw that the caller id was none other then Dohae. Another oddity.

Either way, you picked up the phone, pressing it to your ear.

“Hello?”

“ _Sang Goo you have to come over right now.”_

_Dohae’s voice was muffled over the phone, but her tone was urgent. You shifted your phone in your hand, and frowned._

_“Is everything okay?”_

_“Long story- But Jihoon and I have to clean together... Alone. You have to come help me!”_

_“But Dohae-”_

_“Goo! I can’t be alone with him, please, please, please!”_

You sighed, supposing you didn’t relaly have another choice.

You got to Pledis as fast as you could and found Dohae and Jihoon in the practice room. Dohae was sweeping while Jihoon was wiping down a mirror. You smiled in silent greeting to them as you walked in, noting that Jihoon looked surprised to see you.

“Mind if I join?”

Jihoon smiled at you, from the reflection in the mirror.

“Only if you are willing to work.”

You were honestly quite surprised by how well Jihoon, Dohae, and you all worked together. You all three complimented each other well, basically not having to communicate much at all to figure out what exactly you needed to do next.

But even though you didn’t have to communicate you guys did.

It started out with Dohae humming a Bruno Mars song under her breath. Jihoon quickly picked it up, singing the vocals softly, and they both dragged you in by the time they hit the chorus until you were all three singing the song loudly in the practice room.

It was honestly, some of the most fun you had had in a while.

“Oh my god! Brilliant idea guys! Let’s all hang out tomorrow!” Dohae exclaimed shrilly. You looked at her- about to tell her how stupid of an idea that was when she came over to you, grabbed your arm, and squealed. “Come _on_ it’ll be fun!”

“I’m okay with that,” Jihoon said with a shrug. “You two can help me produce.”

Despite how much of a _dream_ it truly was of yours to watch Jihoon produce, you knew that hanging out all three of them completely defeated the point in trying to get Dohae with Jihoon.

You also noted that the more time you spent with Jihoon the more that you desperately wanted to be the object of his affections. The one that he looked at so curiously when he thought Dohae wasn’t looking. The person that he really cared for.

You remembered why you had fallen in love with him and you still wanted him to fall in love with you, not Dohae.

“I can’t I’m busy,” you stated. It wasn’t an _entire_ lie. You were busy. Just... Not all day.

You looked down to the ground when Jihoon turned his gaze on you.

“Your busy during the whole day?” He asked. See what you meant? It was like he read your mind.

“Yeah! Come on Goo, it won’t be the same without you there!” Dohae insisted.

“I’m not going,” you said finally. “That’s final.”

“Glad you could make it.”

You sent Jihoon a glare as you set your bag down on the floor, completely ignoring the innocent look he sent right back to you.

“Thrilled to be here right after a long day of Kyuhyun beating my ass over and over again with practice,” you mumbled. Jihoon let out a shocked laugh at your dark tone of voice.

“Never expected someone so sunny to be so negative.”

The comparison made you hesitate. It reminded you a little bit too much of his letter but that didn’t make sense. You had been very careful in your words, there was no reason for him to suspect you had any hand in them. So, you let that play to your advantage, and sent him a puzzled look.

“If anyone is sunny, it’s Dohae,” you stated. “Haven’t you seen this girl smile?”

It was true, at least. Dohae’s smile was sunny.

Jihoon acknowledged the comment with a nod, and let the conversation pass, but you couldn’t help the sick feeling in your gut that said you needed to be _much_ more careful, in the time to come.

Jihoon quickly got settled with his music, and Dohae was quick to sit next to him. She chattered away about this and that while Jihoon worked, stopping when he told her to so that he could focus for a few minutes before continuing.

Honestly, they got along quite well.

You hadn’t not ed it really before, but they really were a good match. If nothing else, Dohae and him were compatible. That was a bit relieving to you. If it were to come to it and Jihoon picked her, then at least it was a good relationship.

And despite how odd it truly was to be with a girl trainee you hardly knew, and the idol that you had so long fantasized over it was nice, honestly, being close like this to Dohae and Jihoon.


	3. Chapter 3

While hanging out with Dohae and Jihoon _was_ a lot of fun, you knew that realistically there was a point where you would have to return to the real world, and the real world contained your first comeback with a mini album.

You stopped responding as quickly to Dohae’s texts and you started focusing more on answering Kyuhyun. You stopped going to Pledis and helping Dohae write letters (not that it really seemed like she was writing any now that she could actually talk to Jihoon) and you started staying at Kiltthewhale, focusing more on your own music.

You had wondered how hard it would be to write three songs for a mini album, considering it took you ages to write and perfect your single, but it went a lot easier then you could have imagined it would.

When you got into writing music, it tended to go one of two ways. One, you were able to write everything very quickly and very easily. It was like writing music came second nature to you. Like you had been doing it all of your life.

Or two, you could barely get a single word on the page.

Lucky for you, things went the first way and Jihoon was the reason for it entirely.

God, being so close to him meant that all you could think about was him. What he was doing, what he was thinking about. ALl these questions kept swirling in your mind, all these scenarios, all of these concepts.

You kept imagining all the ways you wanted to tell him that you liked him. You imagined all of the conversations that you wanted to have with him, all of the things that you wanted to do.

There were always so many pros and cons when it came to being in love with someone. The Cons were obvious. You were in love with someone. Your heart beat hard when you thought about that person. You had no control over when you got to see them and when you didn’t see them. You could barely contain yourself from confessing every time that you saw them.

And then there were the pros.

 _Being in love with someone_.

God, loving someone really could be such a magical thing. You had all of these intense feelings for someone, you had all of this control over what you did around them to try and get them to love you back.

You were always so fascinated by so many different things when it came to Jihoon. You could sit and watch him do things in silence for hours and you didn’t think you would ever get bored. He was just... So fascinating, it was no wonder you had fallen for him.

He was so talented. It was like everything that he touched was turned into something beautiful.

You tapped your pencil against your songwriting journal thoughtful.

_The stars sparkle in your eyes, I see every constellation come to life._

_How is it that you are here with me?_

You paused and hummed slightly, but before you could get much further you heard a short knock at your door, and the door slip open.

“Hey there!” You jumped when you felt Kyuhyun’s hands cover your eyes, a partial snarl spreading over your lips as you turned to face the intruder.

“Kyuhyun I swear if you-”

What you saw when you turned around made your heart entirely stop beating in your chest.

Sure, it was no surprise to see Kyuhyun standing there- a shit-eating grin on his face as he stared at you with his arms crossed over his chest, but what you hadn’t expected was for Jihoon and Dohae to be standing right behind him.

And the sight of Jihoon, when so unexpected.... Well, it sent chills through your bones.

“Jihoon! Dohae!” You exclaimed in surprise. “You guys are here too. In our studio. While I’m writing music.”

Kyuhyun snickered and you cut him a short glare- only to notice that Jihoon had caught the action. You smiled again politely and stood up.

“Uh, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You haven’t been answering your phone!” Dohae blurted. “Jihoon was worried.”

Jihoon’s face began to pinken.

“I wasn’t-”

“He kept asking: Have you heard from Sang Goo? What’s Sang Goo up to? Is Sang Goo okay?” Dohae continued, clearly not getting the cue from Jihoon that he was embarrassed to have been concerned about you.

He elbowed Dohae in the side, and she made a face.

You were glad to see that they seemed to be getting along quite well. You could tell just by looking at Dohae that she was a lot more comfortable around him. She was breathing rather evenly and had a pretty relaxed expression on her face- despite having just been elbowed.

You were glad that she was so calm. Glad that her and Jihoon were getting along.

You watched as Jihoon wandered away from Dohae and Kyuhyun, and closer to your desk.

“What are you-” Before he could finish asking- what you were writing- you grabbed your song-writing notebook, and slammed it shut. Even making sure to click away from a few tabs that could give away that you were Siae. You smiled at him innocently and ran your fingers through your hair.

“Debut spoilers,” you said pleasantly.

Jihoon’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“You’re writing the music for your debut?” He asked. At this point Kyuhyun popped over, his lips curling up into a smile.

“Choreographing it- writing it- composing it,” he stated. “Sang Goo here is Kilt’s shining gem.”

You rolled your eyes.

“I couldn’t do any of it without Kyuhyun,” you replied pointedly. “Uh, he can actually show you around the studio. It’s more his then mine.”

Kyuhyun rolled his eyes.

“You’re too humble Goo.”

And you were thinking that Kyuhyun was way too good at acting for his own good.

Seriously, how had he managed to so smoothly slid into this persona that quickly? You felt like you were being eaten from the inside out just being here and telling them that your name was something else, and that was the _tiniest_ part of your lie.

“Here, you have to see Goo’s guitar-”

As Kyuhyun led Jihoon further into the studio, Dohae grabbed your wrist, pulling you over to the side.

“Goo, I have something really important to tell you.”

You stared at Dohae, a confused expression spreading over your face as you stared at her.

“Is something wrong? Did something happen between you and Jihoon?” You asked. She waved her hands through the air.

“That’s exactly it!” Dohae exclaimed. “I don’t think I like Jihoon anymore.”

Your eyebrows shot up in surprise, and your mouth gaped open slightly, You weren’t sure what you were supposed to say to that.

“O-Oh?” You offered.

She nodded, a large smile on her face.

Well, at least she wasn’t upset about it.

“Yeah. We’ve been hanging out a lot, and the more I’m around him the more I realized- He's just like me,” she stated. “We both like the same games, and he likes my company when he writes music but... Jihoon is looking for something else in a girlfriend, and I’m looking for something else in a boyfriend.”

Dohae shrugged.

“Guess we were just meant to be really great friends.”

You couldn’t believe that Dohae was capable of thoughts so mature.

It wasn’t that she was _that_ stupid or anything, but she wasn’t smart either. You had never thought she would have been able to come to the conclusion that Jihoon and here weren’t compatible- Especially since they were both close to one another. It seemed like they got along well enough to at least try dating and most people would.

Most people would ignore all the warning signs.

Most people wouldn’t notice that they wouldn’t work.

But Dohae... She had.

Maybe you needed to be a little more careful when it came to your secrets. She was obviously capable of a lot more then you had originally believed her to.

“So, you’re not going to try anymore?” You asked her. Honestly feeling a little disappointed. No more letters. The letters had been kind of fun.

“Nah, besides Jihoon and I are too good of friends for me to want to date him. It would ruin our chemistry.”

You nodded, brushing your fingers through your hair in thought. You were about to say something else- You weren’t sure yet what but _something_ when suddenly Jihoon and Kyuhyun walked back out. Jihoon looked at you, an expression of bewilderment on his face.

“You’re...” He trailed off shaking his head. “So musically gifted. You can really play that many instruments?”

“I’m not really that gifted,” you said with a wave of your hand and a shy chuckle. “It’s nothing you can’t do after all.”

Jihoon didn’t build off of that, but you could tell by the look in his eyes that he certainly wanted to.

“Why did you stop seeing us?” He asked instead. The question really caught you off guard. You thought that sort of avoiding the reason why you had been gone earlier had been enough for him. It had certainly been enough for Dohae. But Jihoon had an interesting expression on his face.

You wondered what he was thinking.

“I’ve just been overwhelmed,” you replied. “I’m sure you remember what it was like before your debut. It feels like there are a million things that I have to get done.”

Jihoon stared at you, not looking like he entirely believed you. Which was pretty interesting considering the fact that it was the smallest lie that you were currently telling.

“Look, I’m sorry I was gone, but I do have a lot to get done. I’ll hang out with you guys soon I promise,” you assured softly. “When do you guys want to see me next?”

Lucky for you, the next time they wanted to see you was the day of your comeback. Because just feeling like living a double life wasn’t hard enough. You needed to actually have to run inbetween identities to keep your secret.

You sighed as you brushed your hair out, staring blankly at yourself in the mirror.

Were you really able to do all of this? Should you be doing all of this?  
Sure, now with Dohae and Jihoon established as simply friends, you could continue with your original goal of getting Jihoon to fall in love with you, but now that you were closer to him, the goal seemed as far away as ever.

What if your fate was the same as Dohae’s? To just be his friend. Sure, you just wanted Jihoon to be happy, but you would also really like to date him. You wanted him to fall in love with you. You wanted to be his first kiss, you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him. But there were so many outliers, so many things that could go wrong.

Like, what would happen when he finally found out the truth? That you had been lying this whole time? Could Jihoon ever truly love someone who had lied to him so much.

You sighed and shook out your shoulders.

You had to get these feelings out of your brain before you got onstage.

You reached into your bag and pulled out a piece of paper.

_Dear Jihoon,_

_Look, it’s weird that I’m writing you this letter. I’ll be the first to say that, but I have to do something because the truth is... I’m scared. Scared to go on this stage. Scared to continue this lie. Scared of what you are going to do when you find out the truth. I never really meant for it to get this far but... I have to tell you anyways._

_I’m in love with you. Dear god, I am so completely in love with you and everything you do. Getting closer to you is just as exhilirating as it is terrifying. I never thought that I would get to experience you up close. Your smile, your laugh. To have you speak to me is simply mind-blowing._

_I know what you’re thinking. I’m a star-struck trainee who’s feelings are nothing real. Well, I can assure you that is only partially true. I was a fan, and you are the reason that I got into this business but... I really do love you. That real genuine love where I just want what’s best for you._

_And Jihoon, I really hope that I am what’s best for you._

_And I have to tell you the truth. I helped Dohae write those first letters to you, and some of the feelings I projected in those, while no longer wholly true to her anymore, are still truer to me then any other. I love you. I will fight for this love. If not out loud, forever in my heart._

_Sincerely..._

_“_ Hey! _Sang Goo_ , are you ready to go onstage or what?”

You jumped at the interruption, sending a glare at Kyuhyun for the use of your fake name. You covered the letter you had written Jihoon with a few things on the vanity you were seated before and sighed.

“I’m nervous Kyuhyun,” you murmured. “I mean, what if they don’t like the new song?”

Kyuhyun’s eyes narrowed at you and he closed the door behind him, a solemn expression spread over his face.

“Hey, it’s not very like you to get nervous,” he said softly. He walked over to you and placed both of his hands on your shoulders, giving you a determined expression. “Look, you are going to do great out there. You know why?”

“Why?” You asked with a sigh, suddenly getting déjà vu from the hundreds of times you had done this exact thing to Kyuhyun when he was nervous.

“Because you’re you and-”

“I can do anything,” you finished with a roll of your eyes. “Sounds like something an idiot would say.”

Kyuhyun chuckled.

“Only my idiot,” he stated pleasantly. He patted your shoulders once for good measure and then nodded. “Okay now get on that stage and kick butt.”

-

After you finished your stage, you couldn’t find the letter you had written Jihoon, and you didn’t have time to care about it. You had twenty minutes to get half across the town, change, and pretend like everything was completely normal.

Honestly, you didn’t know how Hannah Montana had been able to live a secret pop star life. This was _tolling_.

You rushed out of your clothes, touched up on your makeup and practically burst out of the large performance center. The fastest way to get to Jihoon and Dohae was, unfortunately enough, to run, so when you finally arrived at the coffee shop you were meeting them at you had to pat yourself down and check yourself in the mirror before swallowing your utter exhaustion and walking into the store.

You spotted Dohae and Jihoon easily. They were both seated in a corner of the resturaunt, huddled with their backs towards you over what you could only assume to be Dohae’s phone. You were feeling pretty good about the time that you had made getting there when you heard something.

“ _I see you standing there, acting like you don’t care, that you haven’t seen me in so long._ ”

You wondered idly for a moment why the tune sounded so familiar. Why the music that was drifting from the phone was almost mesmerizing.

And then you realized it was _your song_.

You felt panic seize your heart as you neared them, realizing that the video that Jihoon and Dohae were huddled around was none other then the comeback stage you had just filmed.

“Hey-” Both Dohae and Jihoon looked up at you, Jihoon hitting the pause button as he did so. “What are you guys up to?”

Dohae was quick to pull over a seat and pull you down into it. Coincidentally, right between her and Jihoon. You swallowed hard and tried not to seem so flustered by the close proximity.

“We're watching Siae’s comeback stage!” Dohae announced, confirming your deepest fears. You opened your mouth to ask why, but Dohae didn’t stop there. “See, it turns out Jihoon is a _really_ big fan of theirs and was super excited to hear about the comeback, and actually was-”

“Dohae,” Jihoon hissed, stopping Dohae in her tracks. He looked embarrassed for some reason, his face a crimson red as he spoke. You didn’t understand why, and you didn’t ask why. You just gave him a small smile.

“You like Siae?” You asked softly. He shrugged and looked away from you.

“I mean.. Yeah... Siae’s got a beautiful singing voice...” He trailed off his eyebrows furrowing. You didn’t like the pause so you jumped to action, laughing nervously.

“I can’t believe I am under the same company as Siae! Someone so popular right away! It’s... Crazy.”

“Oh! You must know what Siae looks like!” Dohae said excitedly, her fingers wrapping around your arm. “Are they pretty?”

You blinked as you stared into Dohae’s wide and curious eyes, and shook your head slightly.

“No...? They aren’t pretty?” She asked. You snorted.

“No, I haven’t ever seen them before,” you corrected. “I’m just as in the dark as you two.”

You hated having to lie to them. Honestly, in a way they were become quite close friends of yours. Dohae would probably be appalled to hear she wasn’t your best friend honestly, but you had Joonjae and others to consider that position.

But Jihoon and Dohae were definitely more suitable of the close friend title then a lot of people in your life and you _wanted_ to tell them.

But, you also couldn’t really find the words to do so.

“So what do you guys want to do today?” You asked softly, hoping that the change of topic would mean the end of your lies. Luckily for you, when you asked Jihoon reached forward, shutting off his phone, and pocketing it away.

“Well, first, you have to eat,” Jihoon concluded. “Dohae says the cakes here are delicious.”

You turned to Dohae, an eyebrow raised. You couldn’t believe that Dohae indulged in sweets at all. She was so skinny and pretty, she didn’t seem like the type. You honestly pegged her as a more strict person. Someone who was always on a diet.

Dohae seemed to sense your thoughts because she giggled light-heartedly and pointed at the menu.

“Their strawberry cake is my weakness.”

Whenever you talked with your friends recently it was generally pretty serious. All of your close friends that you met up with regularly knew that you were Siae and even though it was a small percentage of people in your life, it was the percentage of people that helped you figure things out for your stages.

It felt like everytime you went to “hang out” with anyone you ended up talking about work, and stages, and Jihoon, and what you were going to do.

The great thing about hanging out with Jihoon and Dohae was that they didn’t talk to you about work. You guys talked about music and dancing and you teased Jihoon for what silly things he had done on Going Seventeen. You dragged him in and out of store after store and Dohae even got you all three to buy matching bracelets.

You felt like you were back in high school. You felt like you weren’t in training, or anything of the sort. You felt like... Yourself.

“Oh my god do you hear that?” Dohae blurted suddenly. You frowned slightly, your eyebrows furrowing as you tried to make out what she had heard but before you could catch it Dohae was sharply pulling you wrist.

“Oh come on! You _have_ to dance with me you just have to!” Dohae exclaimed. As she pulled you, you were finally able to hear what Dohae had... It was Momoland’s Bboom Bboom playing over a loud speaker.

“Oh Dohae I can’t-”

“Don’t tell me you can’t dance, you’re a trainee just like me!” Dohae insisted. “Come _on_ let’s random play dance like we did before we started training!”

You couldn’t really find it in you to say no to that. You let Dohae pull you into the center with her and started laughing as she wildly began to dance. Unluckily for you two, Bboom Bboom ended shortly after you two got there. Luckily for you, you knew the next song.

The thing about you was that you loved Random Play Dances.

You loved them because they were a party game. You didn’t have to know every song, and you didn’t have to even know a song well to go up and dance to it. Random Play Dances were for discovering that you knew _so many people_ who liked the same groups as you and laughing when you two were doing two mirroring parts or picking a random victim to pick up and left for the part right before the chorus of Thanks by Seventeen because for some reason the random dance was playing songs super early.

You loved the energy people brought to random play dances, the acquaintances that you made whenever you two knew only that _one_ part of a dance.

And most of all, you loved that at the end of it all, as you and someone else dropped to the ground laughing because you two had both messed up that one part of the dance so badly, when you looked up you could see that Jihoon was watching you, and he was smiling just as largely as you.

The problem with having Jihoon and Dohae as your friends now was that you basically had no free time.

They didn’t know you were Siae, you weren’t going to let them know that you were Siae, and that meant that you had to hang out with them whenever they wanted to without them finding out the truth of your schedule.

Luckily, Jihoon being a fan of yours meant that he never wanted to hang out when you had a stage.

However, talking to him about the stage afterwards was always a little awkward.

But outside of hanging out with them, you had to continue hanging out with Joonjae and Kara or else they accused you of being a fake friend.

The bowling pins crashed to the ground and Joonjae turned around, his hands raising to the air.

“Home run!” He screamed out. You bit out a laugh, hiding your mouth behind the back of your hand.

“Joonjae, in bowling it’s _strike,”_ you corrected light-heartedly. Joonjae shrugged.

“What’s the difference?” He asked you. Kara rolled her eyes and slapped him on the shoulder, an amused expression spread over her face.

“You’re an idiot. Now get out of my way.”

Bowling with Joonjae and Kara was a tradition that you three had been keeping up for years. Every month you three would get together and you would go bowling and the results were always the same. Joonjae won, Kara got second, and you got last but had a really great time.

You loved it, there was nothing more fun than watching Joonjae and Kara get at one another’s throats.

“So, tell us,” Kara started with a smile. “How are with _Jihoon_?”

“Actually, good,” you replied with a small smile. “We’ve become quiet close friends... Surprisingly he quite enjoys being close to people. He insists we hang out once a week.”

“We?” Joonjae asked. You nodded.

“Dohae, Jihoon and I... But Dohae and Jihoon are just friends now,” you replied. “Actually... I found this letter in my bag on the way over here. Kyuhyun has been doing some scheming and must have snuck this into my bag.”

_When Dohae and I agreed to be friends I never expected another letter... But I can’t say that I’m disappointed. Kyuhyun gave me your letter... I suppose you never meant to give it to me. He said he found it adressed to me and mentioned that he would find some way to get it to you._

_He assured me that he knows people... I found that a little hard to believe, but I really wanted to keep this little back and forth thing going. It really made my days. I really enjoy talking to you. I was surprised that Dohae was the one I was talking to. Not that she’s bad, just that she isn’t... You._

_I won’t bring this up to Dohae, I’ll let your identity stay a secret... For now. One day I will want to know who my secret admirer is, but for now, I will just suffice with your letters. You’ll have to write a lot and give them all to Kyuhyun to keep me sated._

_Sincerely, Jihoon_

“Woah,” Joonjae mumbled. You nodded, your eyebrows strewn.

“He likes me,” you mumbled. “I mean, the me that is in those letters and that me is-”

“The most genuine you that could possibly exist,” Kara said with a sigh. “He likes _you_ god this is a no brainer! How could you not confess to him?”

You didn’t respond, you just looked down at the letter in your hands. It was enough of a response for Joonjae.

“She’s scared,” he said, his voice quiet. “And it makes sense. What if he rejects you when he realizes you’re Sang Goo, or that you’ve been lying to him all this time?”

You looked up at him, a small glare on your lips.

“I get it,” he said finally. “It’s hard to tell someone that you like them.”

“I’ll tell him eventually,” you assured softly. “I have to. I will.”

_Dear Jihoon,_

_Funny, when we first started writing letters I felt like I was the one who had to do the persuading and now it seems like you’re persuading me to keep writing you. You were right, I didn’t mean to send you that letter, and quite frankly, I’m still uncertain if I should be writing you. It’s risky, you could figure out who I am. I honestly didn’t even know that you knew Kyuhyun at all. I barely know Kyuhyun. But I suppose the world is full of surprises. And you never cease to surprise me._

_You know what’s funny about you? You put on this big front, this quiet guy who doesn’t need anyone in his life. Just a man and his music, but it’s not like that at all is it? You yearn for the attention of the people around you. You love it when Dohae and Sang Goo and Mingyu bother you on a daily basis._

_I mean, you do love your music. It’s as obvious to tell that as it is to tell that someone is breathing. But you also love people. You love having people around you, you love being around people, and just like me you are yearning for that one person in your life that is going to make every last person you have ever met in the world mean less. You can’t wait to fall in love with the person who is going to teach you what real love is all about. You are waiting to live through those feelings you have been writing for so many years._

_What do you think Jihoon. Am I that person?_

_Sincerely._

“I can’t believe you gave him my letter,” you grumbled as Kyuhyun handed you the most recent letter response from Jihoon. He gave you a wide-eyed innocent look and a half smile.

“What? I just saw a letter for Jihoon and I wanted him to get it that’s all.”

“You knew that I wrote that letter when I was nervous,” you chided. “It was supposed to be burned.”

“And now you are trading letters,” Kyuhyun replied with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, I feel so bad for letting him read your confession.”

You ignored Kyuhyun’s sarcasm and pulled up the letter from Jihoon.

_Dear stranger,_

_I don’t know what kind of person you are. I find it very peculiar how well you seem to get me. But other than that, I have no idea. It would help, of course, discerning who you are if you would just tell me. What kind of things do you do? What do you look like? I have so many questions I’d like to ask you, and so few answers coming my way._

_You are... Mind boggling you really are. I’m sure your nervous too. Probably about a lot of things but I don’t know why. You know the kind of person I am, the ideals I hold to my heart. I mean you literally just tore me apart and honestly; I didn’t really mind it. It was nice to know there are people out there who pay that much attention to me. You’re scared right? But I want you to know you shouldn’t be._

_Looking forward to your next letter,_

_Jihoon_

“You should have a concert.”

You looked up from the worn notebook paper in your hand, your eyebrow rising in confusion.

“What?”

“You know, like Bumzu does. Have a miniconcert. Perform some covers and your songs and invite your biggest fans,” he suggested. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I think it would be a really good choice for you.”

You thought over it briefly.

“I guess I have some things prepared I could perform,” you mumbled. “And it would be fun to have an informal concert with a bunch of people.”

“ _See_ ,” Kyuhyun prodded. “I’m chock full of good ideas aren’t I?”

You looked away from him, and certainly didn’t dignify him with a response but you couldn’t help but think that he was right. The concert would be great PR, and it would show just how much you cared about your fans. Honestly, you couldn’t see a downside to having it other then just trying to find the time in your schedule.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

The next few weeks you spent tirelessly planning and preparing for your concert and to say the least, it was not easy. Finding time to sneak away from Dohae and Jihoon so that you could actually prep for the concert was by far one of the hardest things you had to.

But finally, tickets were sold and it was time for you to perform.

You weren’t nervous. At least not as nervous as you were for the stages you had before. Then it was you present something to the world that they had never seen, and everyone in the audience was someone that you had to work hard to impress.

Here you didn’t have to worry. These were people who knew what you were capable of and were eager to see more, so there was no reason for you to be nervous.

The performance went swimmingly. You performed a few covers that people had never seen or heard from you before. You sang your debuted, performed your comeback and showed them a few other tracks from your album for the first time on stage.

Everyone was excited to see it and applauded loudly at your performances. By the time the show was over you were beyond exhausted, and ready to turn in, which was when you noticed someone in the audience, and your heart dropped.

You rushed backstage, practically tossing your mask across the dressing room and ripping your clothes off. You were quick to get yourself into your normal clothes, and ready your makeup before you burst out the back door of the stage ran around the building and snuck in a side door so that it looked like you were just someone else in the crowd. Then you took a deep breath and wondered over to who you had seen.

“Oh! Hello there!” You said with a pleasant laugh. “Have you guys been here the whole time I didn’t see you?”

Not a lie in the least.

Jihoon and Dohae both turned to you with large surprised smiles on their lips. You smiled back at them and tried not to look too shocked when Dohae hugged you.

“Sang Goo! You came!” She exclaimed. You laughed.

“Of course I did, it’s only my seniors' first fan concert,” you replied. “I’m just surprised you two are here.”

“Are you kidding?” Dohae snickered. “Jihoon was so desperate for these tickets he about had a heart attack trying to buy them.”

She looked back at Jihoon and grabbed his arm, pulling on it affectionately.

“ _Dohae, don’t panic. It’s going to be fine. How many fans does Siae have anyway? The show won’t sell it, it won’t-”_

Jihoon smacked Dohae’s shoulder and she burst out into laughter, you joined in, trying to pretend that you were completely at ease with the whole situation but in reality, you were thoroughly panicking.

If Jihoon and Dohae had been here that meant they heard all your covers _and_ saw you dance. You swore that the closer they got to you the more at risk you were to having your secret exposed. After all, Jihoon was an idol himself. You were sure he would be able to recognize your voice if he thought about it for too long.

You wondered, _had_ he thought about it? Maybe he already knew that you were Siae and was just waiting for the right moment to expose you for your lies.

A shiver shook your body, and the motion caught Jihoon’s attention. You watched as concern etched itself over his brow and he stepped forward, shrugging off his jacket before you had a chance to say a word.

“Are you cold?” He asked softly. “Why aren’t you wearing something warmer? Don’t you know how to dress for a concert?”

You couldn’t find it in you to respond to Jihoon, so instead you just shrugged, allowing him to place his jacket over your shoulders. You couldn’t help but think that the action was awfully domestic of him.

“It’s been a long concert,” Jihoon said softly. “Why don’t we all go out together. We can get something to eat?”

He looked at you, a little too long.

“You must be hungry.”

-

“He knows,” you said, throwing your arms in the air in exasperation. Kara glanced over at you, her eyebrows raising ever so slightly.

“Huh?”

“He knows! Jihoon knows, there’s no way Jihoon doesn’t know!” You continued. “The way he looked at me after the concert- He knows, he knows, I know _he knows_.”

“Child, you are being delusional,” Kara chided. She reached out to pat you on the head, but before she could you smacked her hand.

“My voice is very distinct Kara!” You insisted. “Oh my god, what am I going to do? I can’t just keep lying to him!”

“Then just tell him the truth!”

You fell silent at that, your mouth falling shut.

“W-Well, I can’t do that either,” you mumbled. Kara rolled her eyes.

“And why not?”

And the truth was something so simple, that you couldn’t in words say. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe never.

It was because you were scared, and you would never be brave enough to tell Jihoon the truth.

Sometimes, after all, it was just easier to hide behind a mask.


	4. Chapter 4

When you got a text from Dohae saying that she was going to be debuting soon, you had to admit that you were happy for her. How could you be anything else? For a trainee, debuting was the ultimate dream. Some people trained for years and years before they finally got the opportunity to debut.

Dohae had been a trainee for three years now, and you couldn’t help but think she was quite lucky to have transferred over to Pledis when she had so that she was able to get this oppurtunity.

She was, of course, extremely excited, and invited you over to hang out with her in celebration.

_Don’t worry! No Jihoon tonight, just you and me for once!_

You were pretty excited. Lies down to a minimum, and just a chance to relax with someone who was quickly becoming one of your closest friends. You were excited.

You were quick to knock on the practice room door when you arrived (having stopped by the dorms and said hi to Kara quickly first of course). Dohae perked up the second she saw you, the largest smile falling over her lips when she spotted you.

“Sang _Goo_ ,” she called eagerly. She ran up to you and attacked you with a tight hug before you could say much of anything. You stumbled backwards slightly and offered her a friendly smile.

“Hey there, miss _idol_ , how are you doing?”

Dohae burst out into delighted giggles, which quickly morphed into her doing a little jumpy shriek thing. Watching her get so excited over something so simply was honestly really amusing. You couldn’t help but bounce a little too.

“I’m doing incredible! Sang Goo, I’m going to debut!”

She did a little spin away from you.

“Me? Me! I’m going to debut Goo!” She continuted to exclaim. “Oh tonight we have so much we have to do! We have to go out and eat pizza, and go to the park and wish on the stars and then go buy a cake- not individual ones a whole cake- and just eat it until we can’t eat anymore.”

You laughed at Dohae’s excitement, shaking your head in amusement.

“Dohae, if you eat that much you will weigh too much to debut.”

Dohae laughed.

“Don’t worry I’ll train super hard tonight so that I stay in shape.”

She squealed again and raced back over to you, grabbing your hands.

“Oh Goo, I'm going to debut!”

You laughed with Dohae, shaking your head in amusement.

“Wow... You’re just full of excitement aren’t you?” You asked in amusement. Dohae nodded.

“Pure excitement.”

She paused, and her face morphed into one of horror in a millisecond.

“Oh my god, I’m debuting.”

You snickered at her transformation, finding it a little amusing the way that she was no pacing the room.

“Oh my god, is it going to be hard? I’m going to have all of these fans- Unless our debut is bad, I would die if our debut is bad. I-”

Watching Dohae rant about all of the things could go wrong made a lot of things happen in a short period of time.

One: You stopped thinking about yourself as Sang Goo. Something that was very, very bad for yourself. You always had to think of yourself as Sang Goo, because if you didn’t then you would just think of yourself as yourself. A simple idol who had a lot of close friends that you cared about.

And, sadly, thinking of yourself in such a way meant that you didn’t not think twice about trying to comfort Dohae. And you didn’t think about the words that you chose to say as you did so.

“Dohae, it’s going to be okay. I can tell you and Jihoon can too. Debuting is nerve-wracking but in the end it’s just the start to the life you were always meant to lead.”

Dohae fell silent, her eyebrows furrowing slightly. She seemed confused, but you didn’t know why.

“Jihoon... Why do you say so?”

The question caught you off-guard but you were quick to get back on your feet.

“Just because you two are so close now, and you know how Jihoon is. He is practical. Smart. He thinks things through before he speaks. I’m sure you’ve seen the way that he thinks before he does things. His nose wrinkles a little sometimes as he ways the multiple thoughts in his head...” You assured. “And you know that if he’s friends with you, he must think you are talented! He’s only friends with really talented people.”

“Oh my god... You’re in love with Jihoon.”

You felt your heart jump. You turned to look over your shoulder at Dohae but … It was too late. You could see the gears in her mind churning.

“You do, don’t you? It all makes sense now. I’m _so_ stupid.”

“No-”

“ _Yes_ , your name isn’t Goo, you are _Siae_. You’re the one who is in love with an idol and won’t show their face because he doesn’t know yet, and the reason why you were so good at helping me tell Jihoon that I love him is because _you love him too_.”

“Doha-”

“And Jihoon never loved me. Well, not in the same way he loves _you_ ,” Dohae continued. It was almost frustrating... For a girl who was generally so airheaded to finally have the sense to call you out on something that you were able to fool so many into believing. “He loves your words. He loves that you understand him. He doesn’t love the silly things that you tell him. Like about my dancing and about my family life. He likes the way that you bring words _to life_. The way that you make things happen on a piece of paper.”

“You don’t know that,” you disagreed with a roll of your eyes, but the phrase made Dohae grab your wrist. The action startled you, and you were suddenly forced into a deadlock with Dohae. She gave you a stern look, her grip tight on you.

“How could you be such a hypocrite? This whole time you have been telling me that I need to tell the truth, and you... You're the biggest liar of them all.”

The words were a sting to your heart, but you knew they were true. All of this time you had told Dohae how important it was that she embrace herself. That she just trust her heart and follow where it lead, all while you hid behind her pretty face and a piece of paper.

You had thought when you debuted as Siae you were pursing your dream in its fullest. That the only reason you hadn’t exposed your face despite the awards you had already received and the love for your music that had b een expressed was because of Jihoon. You wanted him to fall for you for who you were on the inside, not what you looked like.

You said that you were brave, that you were confident and believed in yourself but in the truth you were no differet the Dohae. She just hid from one person while you hid from the entire world.

Your gaze lowered down to the ground and you let your hair fall in your face. You supposed another mask that you hid behind.

“You’re right,” you murmured.

Her grip loosened a little bit on your arm.

“Wh-what?” She asked. You sighed and looked back up at her.

“You’re right,” you repeated. “You’re right about everything. I’m a fake.”

You weren’t sure why Dohae responded that way that she did, but at your words her fingers completely left your arm. She kneeled down a little bit and brushed her knuckles over your forehead in an attempt to see your eyes. You looked up at her, wondering why she suddenly looked so surprised when she saw your face.

It was when her other hand rose to your cheek, her knuckle brushing your cheek bone that you realized that you were crying.

“Hey it’s okay....”

“Is it?” You blurted back. The words came out a little too harshly, so you closed your eyes and took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, it’s just... I keep telling myself that I’m this... Ideal person. Someone who is confident and cool under pressure but when it comes down to it. I’m nothing more than a coward.”

“It’s scary to be yourself,” Dohae replied back, a small smile riddling over her lips. “Someone I’m really close to taught me that.”

You smiled at her, a tiny chuckle leaving your lips as you did so.

“I guess I owe you the truth then?” You murmured. Dohae stepped back from you and you wiped the remainder of wetness from your cheeks.

“You don’t have to-”

“No, no I want to,” you replied softly. You took a shaky sigh and pushed your hands in your pockets.

You told her pretty much everything she needed to know.

How you fell in love with Jihoon and his stage persona, and how the crush never wavered or went away. That how watching him achieve his dreams made you want to achieve your own dreams as well, so you stomached all of the nerves that you had been facing and joined an entertainment company.

You told her all about your trials and tribulations. How hard you had fought to be where you were today. And how you had never meant to start lying like this. How you had never wanted to let everything get this far.

“So, all this time...” She murmured.

You shrugged.

“I’ve been living a double life,” you replied with a small laugh. “I never thought it would get this far... And I never imagined that you would figure out that I liked Jihoon like this.”

“It’s you.”

Your eyes widened, as you stared at Dohae. She looked just as surprised as you and glanced over your shoulder at who you could only assume was standing there. Your body stiffened and you had _just managed to calm yourself down._

“Dohae is that-”

“Yep.”

You turned around.

“Look I can explain- I mean, the letters-”

“Oh, I knew that it was you who was writing the letters,” Jihoon interrupted with a wave of his hand. “No offense Dohae, you’re gorgeous, it’s just that talking to you in person and then reading your writing... It was clear that I was talking to two different people.”

Dohae waved a hand through the air.

“It’s okay, I understand,” she said softly.

“And once it came down to it, there could only be one person who was writing me the letters. _You_. You’re close to Kyuhyun and Dohae- It just made sense,” Jihoon continued. You opened your mouth to deny what Jihoon was saying, but before you could he continued.

“Besides, I also knew that it had to be you who was Siae. You’re singing voice-”

You knew it, you knew he had known and here it was, the truth.

Jihoon knew you were Siae. He knew that you were in love with him.

And it was too much for you to handle.

You took a step backward, not saying a word as you did so. No one noticed so you took another one, and then another, and then before you knew it you were running in the opposite direction. You could hear Jihoon calling after you, but in the moment, you didn’t care at all. You just had to get out of there.

“Wait, where are you-”

And before they could say another word to you, you were running. You rain past Jihoon, out of the training room, out of Pledis, until you couldn’t run anymore. You felt tears streaming down your face as you slowed down your sprint, but you couldn’t really bring it in yourself to care.

You felt your phone buzz in your pocket and your eyes widened slightly in surprise. You looked down, sniffling as you pulled your phone out of your pocket.

Dohae: _Hey are you okay?_

Dohae: _Why did you run off? Come back!_

Dohae: _Look, no one is upset, can’t we just talk about this?_

Dohae: _Please come back_

But you couldn't do it. You couldn't come back to them. You couldn't look either of them in the eyes. You had lied to them for so long. You couldn't do it. All you could do now was what you had always planned on doing.

You had been planning on this the whole time. Once the truth came out, the truth had to come all the way out. You had to come clean with everything.

That meant the mask had to come off.

That meant all you could do was compose.

You received hundreds of texts from Dohae over the next few weeks, but you ignored them all. It wasn't that you were mad at her, it was just that facing her right now sounded like too much to handle. You couldn't look her in the face when she had found out your secret.

You had wanted to be the one to tell them who you were... Sure you hadn't figured out how to do it yet, but you had still wanted to be the one to tell them in the end.

So, you ignored Dohae, you ignored the warnings you kept getting from Kyuhyun. You didn't care if you were working too hard. If focusing exclusively on your revelatory comeback wasn't healthy. You just dove right into everything, working hard on what you had promised yourself you would achieve long ago.

Writing the song was easy and composing it with Kyuhyun was actually quite fun. It took your mind off of things. Made you forget for a second what all you had to worry about.

Until finally, it was time to face the music.

Well... Not the literally music.

When you saw Dohae seated at the restaurant you told her to meet you at- the first one you had ever eaten at with her, you felt oddly nervous. Your body buzzed with anxiety, basically screaming at you to run away again.

But Dohae was your friend.

It was wrong to have run away from her in the first place, and wrong for you to have lied to her for so long, and left her in the dark so often.

You took a deep breath and walked up to her.

The first thing you wanted to say was that you were sorry, that you were thankful she was meeting you and that you were happy to see her, but before you could say any of that she looked up at you and broke out into a large smile.

"I was _so_ worried!" Dohae blurted out. She jumped towards you, her arms wrapping around your body as she wrapped you in a tight hug. "It's been forever, how are you are you okay?"

She pulled away from you, her hands taking yours. She looked you up and down and her smiled dropped from her face.

"You've lost weight. Have you not been eating?"

You opened your mouth to tell her that you had been eating- a lie, but a better one then just lying about your entire personality and name and... Well, everything.

"You know it isn't healthy to not eat. Just because you're an idol doesn't mean that-"

You interrupted Dohae by leaning forward, your arms wrapping around her tightly.

"Dohae," you whispered softly. "I missed you a lot."

You felt the tension leaving Dohae’s body.

“I missed you too,” she said softly. You pulled away from her and gave her a small smile.

“I know I don’t deserve it, but-”

“Of course, I forgive you,” she said softly. “I was never mad; I could never be mad at you. You had your reasons and I understand that.”

“Yeah?” You asked.

“Yeah,” Dohae mumbled. You shook your head.

You couldn’t believe that you had been so stupid. To think that Dohae would care about something like you lying about your name and a bit of your backstory. To her your lie meant nothing. She knew that you were genuine when you were with her, and that’s what mattered the most to her.

You were glad to be able to call her a friend.

After eating a meal with her and catching up on everything you looked down at your watch and sighed.

“Well, I have a comeback coming soon, so I better get-”

“Jihoon misses you.”

You froze, slowly looking back up at Dohae. Her expression was different then it had been all day. It was more serious. Solemn.

“He’s giving you the space he thinks you need but he misses you a lot.”

“Did you tell him?” You asked. “That you were seeing me today.”

“No,” Dohae responded. “I couldn’t. I knew that you wouldn’t want that.”

“Thank you.”

“But you can’t avoid him forever.”

You knew that she was right. It was so... High school of you to have run away from him. Even more elementary of you to continue hiding from him. But you couldn’t face him. Not yet. Not when you had lied to him. Someone who valued honesty so much.

You looked down, away from Dohae.

“I’ll see you around Dohae.”

“Bye.”

The next thing you knew, it was time for your stage.

You were nervous, of course you were nervous.

You had spent these past few months hiding behind a mask. One that hid who you were and the truth behind everything and now you had to take a step out of that mask. Set it aside forever and reveal to the whole world who you really were.

You were excited, but also, nervous. How could you not be after all? You were giving yourself to the world raw. It was a lot.

“Nervous?”

You looked back at Kara, smiling nervously.

“A little,” you admitted.

“Less then you’re debut though. You aren’t singing now,” she said with a chuckle. You snickered.

“It’s basically like a debut,” you replied. “Now everyone gets to see my face.”

“Your beautiful face,” Kara said affectionately. She reached forward to touch your face, but you just laughed and fell away from her.

“You’ll ruin my makeup!”

You squealed as Kara continued to chase you around the room, doing your best to stay away from her until finally the door to the dressing room opened, and Kyuhyun poked his head through the door.

“It’s time to go.”

You slowed to a stop, laughing nervously.

“You think I’m ready?” You asked him softly. He smiled.

“You were born ready.”

When the lights on stage shined down on you and all that was left for you was you and the microphone.

_I’m sorry for the lies,_

_I’m sorry for the truth,_

_I hope that what you see soon,_

_Doesn’t disappoint you_

_But I can’t hide forever, even if I wanted to_

_And I do_

You took the edge of your mask, took a deep breath and ripped it off your face.

_But here I am, here I stand_

_There’s no one else around_

_But me and you, all I am_

_You know this is what’s true_

_I love you, oh I love you_

_It’s hard to say, I must admit_

_Because the words never seem to fit_

_But I fell for you as easy as the sun brings the day_

_I wonder what you have to say_

_But here I am, here I stand_

_There’s no one else around_

_But me and you, all I am_

_You know this is what’s true_

_I love you, oh I love you_

_And I don’t know what you have to say, maybe I’ll never know what_

_It’s hard to be yourself, in this authentic world_

_But after lying to you, it’s only fair to say_

_I’m sorry for it all and hope you can forgive me one day_

_But here I am, here I stand_

_There’s no one else around_

_But me and you, all I am_

_You know this is what’s true_

_I love you, oh I love you_

The lights went down on stage and you felt like a huge weight had been lifted off your shoulders.

You knew that if Dohae was telling the truth, Jihoon would watch this stage. Maybe Jihoon would accept your apology.

But if she was wrong. If she was lying, you may never see him again.

However, you didn’t need to worry about it for long.

You opened the door to your dressing room, and when you saw who was sitting at the vanity, you felt like all of the air had been punched out of your gut.

“Jihoon.”

“Hey.”

There was an awkward silence as you stared at him and he raised an eyebrow as you just stood there staring at him.

“Aren’t you going to come in?” He asked. You sucked in a breath and nodded, wandering into the room. You shut the door behind you and then turned to face him again, your eyes widening slightly.

“I...” You shook your head. “Did you...?”

“Yeah, it was good,” he replied. “You were amazing. People love you, you know.”

“I hope they aren’t let down,” you said with a chuckle, gesturing nervously to your face.

“You are beautiful.”

Your faced blazed red and you risked a look back up to Jihoon, unable to help yourself. He looked genuine.

“Th-”

“Why did you run?” He asked softly. You choked on air and looked away from him again, feeling those nervous butterflies in your stomach again. You couldn’t really believe it. Just how nervous you were. It was just Jihoon.

But that was just the problem, wasn’t it?

“I was just... Scared,” you replied softly. “It’s kind of something that I have always been. It’s why I couldn’t tell you from the beginning. Why I tried to get you with Dohae. Hiding is so much easier then actually telling the truth.”

Jihoon pursed his lips and nodded.

“Then, let’s do something different,” he suggested. He stood up and brushed off his pants. He smiled at you and held out his hand.

“Hello!” He greeted pleasantly. “My name is Jihoon.”

You smiled at Jihoon, a wave of relief coming over you.

“Really? You still want to be with me?” You said. “Even after all the lies.”

Jihoon shrugged, keeping his hand in the air.

“You were scared, sometimes people lie,” he stated pointedly. “You had good intentions.”

He sighed.

“Besides, I read your letters. Your feelings are genuine, I want to give this a shot,” he insisted. “So.... Hello! My name is Jihoon.”

He stared at you, a genuine sparkle of honesty in his eyes. It made you smile to watch him like that. You couldn’t believe that he was giving you this chance. This opportunity. He trusted you, he wanted to give you a shot.

This was everything you had ever dreamed and more.

The whole time that you had imagined this you had thought that something tragic would happen. Like the further into the lie you went the more tragic the outcome would be. But here you were, the perfect beginning to a love story that had all of the makings to be amazing.

You swallowed your nerves and gave Jihoon a smile.

“It’s nice to meet you Jihoon. My name is...”


End file.
